Updatey the third...

[denny]

In exciting news, the Hackney Council charge was indeed a parking ticket, and they did indeed give me the registration plate of the vehicle involved.

In less exciting news, when I reported all this to the local police they basically said "Hereisyourcrimereferencenumberhaveaniceday". When I asked about the possibility of actually using the information to catch someone, they got a bit shifty... I have to call back in a week to find out whether they decided to bother investigating or not. Bit disappointing considering I potentially just gave them the thief's home address.

Comments

[aca.livejournal.com]

Might be worth passing those details to your bank, see if they can send the baliffs round? :)

[olithered.livejournal.com]

Excitement indeed!

If they do nothing you can always write to your local councillor/MP/newspaper...

[nisaba.livejournal.com]

Indeed, the bank will probably care more than the cops, sadly. And yes, mention it to the Metro ;)

[dakeyras.livejournal.com]

I'll be very surprised if they get the actual thief's home address, to be honest. In my experience with this level of criminality there's a probability of over 90% that the car isn't registered with DVLA, therefore nigh-on untraceable without a fair shedload of luck. I'm actually half-expecting the vehicle now to be dumped somewhere and burned out - what happens in a fair number of cases is that a card is stolen so that it can't be traced to the owner, who needs to retrieve drugs / weapons / whatever. The vehicle itself suffers some ignominious end, usually arson, and the owner walks away to get another car from the local auction house, who of course don't bother ensuring that the vehicle is registered, or even that the owner has given any form of credible ID.

I'll stop now, before I start ranting.

[dennyd.livejournal.com]

And the question you have to ask yourself is, in that case, why would they be paying the parking ticket?

[dakeyras.livejournal.com]

Just a ticket? Sorry, I presumed it was a retrieval from pound...

[pooloftrees.livejournal.com]

While I try to keep positive about the police, my girlfriend would cite this as yet another example of police uselessness. I agree with other posters - pass the details to the bank, and they can use their well greased solicitors to proceed if they see benefit in it.

Good luck for getting it all sorted - at least sufficent to ensure least inconvenience and loss to you...

[sevenhelz.livejournal.com]

Could be a fake plate, though that seems odd, like you say they're bothering to pay for it...
Try mentioning it to your local petrol station attendant. You never know, even if they don't recognise it it's possible they'll stop serving that car.

Police thing does sound a bit poo, usually if they think they can actually get anything they ask you a bit more. Bah.
xx

[pndc.livejournal.com]

You can write to the DVLA and ask for the name and address yourself. You have to provide a reason, but yours is more than good enough. There's a nominal charge for this service.