SHould the police deal with this?

Question

My bfs brother was arrested and kept in jail overnight on saturday for drink driving. he had been at his mates house drinking when he heard a smash outside. he ran out and saw a car drive off. that car had just driven into the driveway and smahed his car. so my blokes bro got into his car and chased them down the road (over the limit). the police pulled him over and found he was drunk. they wouldnt listen to him when he told them someone had commited criminal damage on his car. they just arrested him and now he has to face court and its guna cost him £2k to fix the car. he went bak to the police today to report the criminal damage act but they said he has no proof and since he was drink driving he oculd hav easily caused the damage himself by crashing or something. will the ppl who commited the damage get away with it?

my bf wants to take the law into his own hands and fins the ppl that caused the damage but i have told him his bro did break th law and has to face the concequences.
Neither of them will accept it tho. they r both v v angry about it and willing to find this person and smash up their car. how can i stop them!!

Answer 1

It was terrible that a criminal offence had taken place.

Draw yourself out of the fact that you know him, and look at the police's perspective.

A man who is over the limit was chasing somebody. He was obviously driving dangerously enough for the police to pull him over. He may well have had good intentions, but he wa salso putting other roadusers lifes at risk in doing so.

Answer 2

I am quite sceptical about what you are saying and wonder how much truth there was in it. I appreciate this is what you've been told by your bfs brother.

First of all the lad was caught driving whilst over the prescribed limit. Although his story is no defence it sounds like he's trying to use it as mitigation to the fact that he was driving in the first place. It probably won't work anyway.

Secondly, I personally wouldn't take a report of criminal damage either. Nor would I complete an accident report based on what was said. It is more likely that the damage was caused as a result of him driving whilst drunk. Question is who's property has he hit and left damaged???

It all sounds very fishy.

Answer 3

I'm afraid that if there is no other evidence (e.g. photos or witnesses) or the perpetrator was known by the victim, the police would be unlikely to be able to do much about this crime - there's just not enough for them to go on. In addition, your boyfriend's brother has placed himself in a very weak position by driving illegally whilst over the limit. Whilst criminal damage is not a nice crime, drink driving puts the public at risk and is unacceptable. What your bf's brother should have done was call the police immediately, instead he has committed a worse crime than that he was trying to deal with. If a drunk driver runs me over, I'm afraid I'm not going to care who did what do his car beforehand, I'll be just as dead.

Answer 4

Probably. Your bfs brother should have just gotten a description of the car and tried to get the license number. He had no business driving drunk no matter what the circumstances. If he hadn't been drunk, he would have still been driving recklessly. There is no excuse for chasing someone in a car while going high speeds. It endangers other people. Since your bfs brother was drunk, he didn't have the capability to drive, let alone chase someone down at high speeds, which is the police department's job.

Answer 5

You need to divide this into the two separate components.

1] The lad was drunk, brought himself to the attention of the police and was arrested. Not much can be done about that.

2] Damage to the car. Is there any proof, witness etc.? It's going to be a hell of a job for you to prove otherwise, especially as the car was moved a considerable distance and anything could have happened, particularly in view of the chap's condition.

Answer 6

Unless there is CCTV footage, proving his case then I am affraid it's bad news. The evidence is circumstantial and is being taken at face value by the Police, because that is all they are required to do. It is up to the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) to study the evidence and decide as to whether there is a case to answer here. If there is then he will be prosecuted for drink driving and the 2K repair bill for his car will be the least of his worries.

Answer 7

There is never any excuse for Drunk Driving.
If a pregnant women needed to get to hospital urgently, is it a good idea to be driven there by a Drunk? Of course not. He could have killed someone while chasing this other car while drunk.

That's life! He will just have to face up to it.

Answer 8

I can find no excuse for drink driving. He's lucky he's not facing further charges, for example if he had caught up with the so called culprit what would have happened?. I can't see an insurance company paying up for the damage if he's been charged with being over the limit and quite rightly so!!!.

Answer 9

well he was wrong going after the pdhr veh. he should have gotten the tag # and called it in to the police. let them find the h/r veh.
he would have done what when he caught them....?
he should have insurance. they can investigate the h/r
the police see him driving irratic and being dui- he will get charged with it. it's not like the po's haven't heard EVERY story known to man as to why ppl drive like they do when stopped or stopped for dui

now he knows to call the police instead of being a bonehead chasing after a h/r veh.
sorry but he did the crime so he's got to do the time, regardless of he's a vic or not

Answer 10

He needs to gather his witnesses up and go back to the police station. Either way he broke the law when he got behind the wheel drunk. He made that choice. He should have called the police when it first happened, and not tried to be a cop.