Car scartched, person only left number plate??

Question

I parked my car (new vw bora) in a car park to do the shopping, when i came back, there was a scratch along the rear wheel arch and somebody has left a tiny piece of paper on the windscreeen with a car registration number and nothing else.

am in the uk..but not sure how the system works in term of what i need to do, do i need to inform the police? contact the person who did it etc? and how do i do that seeing that all i have is his/her car registration

thanks

Answer 1

The police will only help if it's criminal damage, which means you need to show intent, which is impossible.

They can't give you details of the owner as the D.P.A. prevents this.

Sometimes life isn't fair.

Answer 2

It is also possible that the person that hit your car didn't leave the number at all.  It might be a witness that didn't leave their name so they weren't caught in the middle of something.  Best bet is to go to the police and they well help you from there.

Answer 3

Report the incident to the police and your insurance, but usually cases like these are still treated as Knock for Knock as it happened on private land.

Answer 4

I would suggest that a third party has witnessed the incident & left the number plate details for you - nice. Go to the police first, hopefully, they'll be bothered to visit the owner & make note of any damage before they can repair it, although they probably won't be able to give you the owners details. They should give you an incident number.

You can then write to the DVLA;

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/Own...

and request details of the driver to forward to your insurers.

Answer 5

Um, how do you even know the number plate was from the person that did it, isn't it possible, that they just left a random number plate of a nearby car to fool you, so that they would not be caught?

If the plate is genuine, go to the police or if you plan on having your insurance cover it, try going to the DVLA, but since you'd be stupid to claim on something so small, just ask the police, they should be able to help you, also find out if the supermarket has any video footage of the incident from their security cameras.

Answer 6

Go to the police and explain what happened.they can run the plate number to give you an address so you can contact the person.