police complaint response

[leeg]

I made a complaint last week about a police van which made a dangerous and aggressive overtake of me on my commute in South-East London.  I even caught the van up at the next traffic jam so was able to get a 2nd look at the reg.  Didn't take a photo though.

Got a letter today saying that 'At the time of writing, this vehicle is in a garage in the West Midlands and is 'being converted into a marked police vehicle.  Therefore, this could not have been at the location you state on...  Without a correct registration number it will be impossible to trace this vehicle'

What a great reply, do they think I randomly made up a registration number which luckily turns out to be for the correct make and model of a police van?  I thought maybe there are lots of vans with similar plates so I checked lots of close variations on the DVLC site and none of them even appear as valid number plates.

[Wowbagger]

I think I would elevate that to the Police Complaints Commission with the extra info that you caught up with the vehicle.

It may have been in for servicing at somewhere in the W. Midlands at the time of writing. That doesn't mean that it wasn't being test-driven by some boy-race from the garage.

It all depends on how much you want to be a thorn in their side. I appreciate that this is a pain, but then I have plenty of time on my hands.

[ian]

I would be somewhat surprised if the police don't track their vehicles, but even if not, I'm sure there are detailed logs of which vehicles were active in the area and who was driving them. You shouldn't need the registration number so it's bullshit to claim they can't trace it without a valid number.

[grams]

Given my limited dealings with the Met I'd be quite surprised if it weren't a complete shambles with no one keeping track of anything.

[Jurek]

I'm advised by a relative, who is an officer in the MET, that police vehicles are indeed tracked - unless the box isn't working......

[cygnet]

"At the time of writing" doesn't make sense.

"At the time of the incident" would.
(at least it would from the police perspective in dismissing your complaint)