[Rendel Harris]

London camera cyclists may be interested to know that, according to a response I’ve just received from the traffic public reporting team (after I said that if they wouldn’t tell me the outcome of a submission I would have to make an FOI request for it) that apparently “a project is underway and hopefully will be live in December 2024, where you will be able to view the results of Public Reporting traffic offences.” That would be a definite step forward if it comes to pass!

Topic

[wtjs]

Pretty much everything to do
Pretty much everything to do with the police in general, and the Met. in particular (Carrick, Couzens, the recent case of an entire station full of bent coppers, exposed by the Beeb/ Panorama) is rubbish – and that’s before we even get to special dismissive attitude concerning offences against cyclists. I despise the bastards!

[Rendel Harris]

Just an update on this: I

Just an update on this: I wrote asking why even the pretty inadequate spreadsheet link had been removed and just received this reply: “We have had to remove the link as the data was not user friendly.  This is currently with the IT department and hopefully will be available soon, but with no date as of yet.” So that’s rubbish, eh?

[HoarseMann]

“can neither confirm nor deny

“can neither confirm nor deny”
I was under the impression that was a stance usually reserved for matters of national security, not some close pass of a cyclist! What planet are the police on! 🤣

I can, however, understand them not releasing the details of a specific case under FOI, as it becomes a matter of public record. But you, as the victim, should be given that information privately under the victims code.

[wtjs]

These are 2 of CM’s cases

These are 2 of CM’s cases where the Met. deployed their latest ‘unable to process’ dodge to avoid doing anything- he tracked down the outcomes on the infamous Met spreadsheet. The first is where the phone-offending thug driver threatened CM with his fist and swore at him. The second is about parking on the zig-zags by a crossing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOKrcobvUpM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npiPqs8GgNg

[wtjs]

Operation Snap (Wales) is

Operation Snap (Wales) is currently taking no further action in any cases that would only warrant a warning letter

Operation Snap (Lancs) is currently taking no further action in any cases that would only warrant a warning letter

[quiff]

Not on precisely the thread

Not on precisely the thread topic, but close enough. I have just learned that due to overwhelming demand, Operation Snap (Wales) is currently taking no further action in any cases that would only warrant a warning letter – it’s saving itself for serious cases.   

[wtjs]

So: I’m still hoping that

So: I’m still hoping that somebody who sent in a video to the Met. (or to any police force) and who then received the ‘we’re taking action but we’re not going to tell you what it was’ missive, and where the video of the offence is online, can send me the evidence of a proper penalty for an offence against a cyclist: either from this Met. (or the Northamptonshire web page which preceded it) spreadsheet, or from a letter from the police. Bungle_52 provided an exemplary case! One thing that struck me about the Met. speadsheet (apart from ‘why not provide the case reference?’ which suggests to me they’re trying to make it as difficult as possible to put people off) was the number of people where the evidence was written off as not to the required standard. My experience is that my evidence is first rate and I think that this is just yet another police dodge to ditch cases they don’t like. How do you get better than these? – I suspect most submissions are of comparable quality,and many of these Met write-offs were mobile phone offences which are easy to get when there are lots of traffic queues

https://upride.cc/incident/pe18ojj_insignia_redlightpass/

https://upride.cc/incident/dp14fym_insignia_closepassdwlcross/

https://upride.cc/incident/n7blh_rangerover_closepassuwlcross/

And this one was ‘closed’ by an un-named police officer as soon as it went in, you won’t be surprised to see

https://upride.cc/incident/kn21axh_lancspolice_closepass/

[Rendel Harris]

Yes – warning letter!

Yes – warning letter! Outrageous considering the number of laws he broke and it makes me wonder whether it’s worth submitting anything to the Met unless someone actually hits me. The only thing that keeps me bothering is the fact that quitting is obviously what they want us to do, or at least that’s the message I’m getting from the total lack of cooperation and information from the traffic unit and the risible sanctions drivers are getting for offences that are absolutely open and shut points plus fine if not more.

[momove]

Thanks again for the link to
Thanks again for the link to the spread sheet. It is very cumbersome to filter by date and then try and find/guess the location you were riding! Would it have killed them to include their own reference number they provide after a submission?!

It should still be useful to see what offences are taken forward by the Met though. And it may help with being aware of what videos have been successful in the past.

Edit: did you find out what happened with the driver of the Zipcar?

[Rendel Harris]

I generally get a response

I generally get a response saying that action will be taken in 90% of cases I submit (I do only submit ones that I believe are absolute certanties); from the data on the spreadsheet it looks as if, for that time period at least, it’s about 40% advisory letters and 60% “ongoing/potential prosecution” which I assume, possibly optimisitcally, means course/points or court. I haven’t been asked to court as a witness for nearly three years though so I have to assume they are mostly the former. 

N.B. Sorry for the lack of clarity in my original post, I meant to say that they are marked as prosecution/ongoing, two different categories. It would help of course if the Met, in addition to the data, explained what those two things actually meant.

[momove]

Thanks for the update. I’ve
Thanks for the update. I’ve wondered about where this would end up.

When you say most of your reports are “prosecution ongoing” do you mean you get a response to most of yours? I’ve rarely received any acknowledgement of mine. But I’ll be getting the laptop out to look at that link in a few hours.

[Rendel Harris]

Well, I finally got some

Well, I finally got some response from my repeated requests as to what was happening with the alleged database and was supplied with a link which shows all reports and action taken from 1/23 to 11/24, which may be of interest to others who have reported incidents in London:

https://www.met.police.uk/SysSiteAssets/foi-media/metropolitan-police/priorities_and_how_we_are_doing/corporate/public-allegations-data-january2023-november2024.xlsx

Not exactly the publicly accessible database I was promised and hardly easy to use, no car registration numbers so you have to find the date of the incident and then scroll through all incidents recorded on that day to find the location. Most of my reports, I presume due to the backlog in the courts, are marked as “prosecution ongoing”.

[wtjs]

Surely, they can’t be dim

Surely, they can’t be dim enough to sit on it for as long as possible and then claim ‘something…something..GDPR..etc’? Can they?

So, the conclusion is that they were planning for sometime in December a facility that provided the outcome of any reported offence to the person who reported it and was therefore in possession of the report reference, but that proposal has now disappeared into the long grass ‘the database has been sent back to development, therefore we are waiting for an update from IT’ and you ask for that very information and they’re making it difficult ?!

[Rendel Harris]

Thanks for the advice, you’re

Thanks for the advice, you’re a man after my own heart in terms of keeping after them! I haven’t been able to focus much on this over the last month because I’ve had my hands full looking after someone close to me who has been very ill but in any case I’ve hit rather a stumbling block: the police did respond in time to the FOI request but came back saying that they could not release the information because of GDPR but that I can apply for the information by making a Subject Access Request. To make such a request you need to supply a copy of your passport to prove identity and proof of address within the last three months, this being a driving licence or a copy of a utility bill with my name and address on that is less than three months old. I don’t have a driving licence and all the bills I have are more than three months old, so somewhat stalled. The council tax bill should be coming in soon and I will renew my pursuit of them then.

[wtjs]

FOI request submitted
FOI request submitted
We must now be very close to 4 weeks from your FoI request Rendel- at this time of year without public holidays that’s all the time they’re allowed to reply. The police have tried it on with me a couple of times and haven’t replied within the specified time, claiming ‘pressure of work’. Don’t let them get away with it. Say you sent it in on a Wednesday, then be ready to send in your complaint to the Information Commissioner website at 8 am on the Thursday 4 weeks later, if they haven’t replied by then. ICO has to issue a decision against them for failure to reply, and gets them off on the wrong foot. This doesn’t matter if they then provide the information you want, but if they refuse you get straight back in with another complaint challenging their refusal, mentioning their failure to reply in the specified time. That teaches them a lesson!

[Author]

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