What to expect in court for car accident?

[CurlsLDN]

18 months ago somebody reversed into the side of my car in a supermarket car park - I was driving through the car park at around 10mph and she reversed out of her space without looking, causing damage to my rear passenger doors.

despite admitting fault at the scene and initially to insurance, she then changed her stance and says not her fault.

it’s gone through insurers and solicitors and now we’ve been given a court date. I will need to go to our local ‘crown and county court’ for a hearing with a judge in a couple of weeks.

the solicitors acting on my behalf have just said to arrive 30 mins early for a briefing with a barrister.

does anyone know what to expect on the day?

• will I speak in court?
• will it be a proper courtroom or just a small room with us and the judge?
• will there be a jury?
• will we find out the decision there and then?
• anything else I might benefit from knowing?

I have been to this court recently for jury service, so know what to expect from the building and what a proper courtroom looks like there, but not sure what to expect for a car insurance decision.

I had this when my neighbour drove a van he had hired into the back of my parked car and caused several thousand pounds worth of damage. He was mortified, accepted all responsibility etc.

The insurance company used by the van hire company were literally a bunch of pirates and stopped all contact with mine. Court date was set etc and the day before I was due to go, along with neighbour who was so supportive, they paid out to my insurer and it never went ahead. Apparently it’s quite common - they hold out until the last minute in the hope it goes away.

hi

we went once years ago - it was a small court room with just the magistrate, each sides barrister and then the defendant and the claimant ; it was a small court room and whilst formal wasn’t intimidating or adversarial

there was no cross examination - the magistrate just asked each side what they were looking for and then the claimant and the defendant took turns to sit at the front while the magistrate asked them questions about their statements

before the hearing we spoke to the barristers who basically had one more go at getting the case settled before going before the magistrate

a decision was made there and then, whole thing took about 30 minutes

try not to worry , it was all very calm and matter of fact and over pretty quickly

I had to do this. It was just a room with a table and a judge or magistrate. Was pretty straightforward and i won. Seemes a lot of fuss imo for something that could have been sorted earlier. But wasnt too intimidating.if you have good defense.

Thank you, that does sound a very similar story!
I’ve had no further contact with the other driver, but I do feel like there is an outside influence recommending she refutes it in hopes I’ll accept and pay half - probably the insurers.

thanks for sharing that it was called off at the last minute, I strongly suspect that will happen here, but wasn’t sure it could once court was booked. Good to know it’s still a possibility!

if I were her I’d be feeling very worried about explaining to a judge how my car could possibly have driven sideways like a crab to hit hers 😁

Oh thank you Shylo and Nitgel, great to understand what it might be like in the room from those who’ve done this.

I agree, it’s so much fuss for what was really just a minor prang in a supermarket car park! No injuries, no suggestion of anyone drinking or anything like that, just an honest mistake by her that must happen every day in every supermarket car park. I can’t believe it’s gone this far!

her only possible defence could be your speed I would think? which should be ascertainable anyway

Hope all goes well

Thanks. There’s been no suggestion that I was going too fast - her solicitors sent a ridiculous letter suggesting I drove into her (impossible and evidenced by the location of the damage on both cars) and that I failed to stop when there was an obstruction in the road (she hit me when the front of my car had already passed hers, the impact was ‘behind’ me, so I couldn’t have stopped to avoid it)

so I’m not worried that they’ll say I was speeding.

thankfully I feel pretty confident in my position in this, I’m sure she feels a lot more worried!
I feel bad for her as it was a mistake any of us could make and not that big a deal, but I guess she’s allowing the insurers to take it this far so any stress she’s feeling is of her making

Sounds ridiculous that the insurance company would take it this far for a fairly trivial accident, I would have thought that it was pretty much cut and dried their fault. And surely there would be CCTV of the car park?

I was a witness in one of these type of cases. It got settled the day before court again, but ended up at court as the driver at fault wouldn’t accept liability. It sounds like this is the case for you, regardless of her admission at scene, people can and do change their minds. I suspect in my case that once she had a briefing from the barrister she was told she had little chance of winning, probably because at the time I was an off duty professional who witnessed the collision, with a lot of experience of dealing with road traffic collisions, and my evidence was pretty damning for her.

I’ve also given evidence at insurance cases in the high court and also at Crown Court Criminal Trials and the insurance case was still formal but a more pleasant experience than a criminal case. If you do have to speak just tell the truth (you’ll have to swear on oath anyway - decide now if you want to swear on an holy book or affirm then you won’t worry about this on the day) and just be factual in your evidence.

Contrary to popular belief most supermarkets don’t bother with the expense of CCTV on their car parks, it creates requests from third parties like insurance companies to provide it and is costly to respond to and to maintain the systems when their aim is to protect their stock which is inside the store. Some do obviously work but often don’t cover all the car parks, usually the doors with a view of the car park, but a lot of cameras you see on car parks of supermarkets are dummy cameras and don’t work.

I couldn’t believe mine almost ended up in court. The car was parked outside my house (and I was inside). There was absolutely no way it could have been my fault 😂😂😂.

They just wanted to make it as difficult for me as possible in the hope I would tell my insurers to give up. I mean, what was I going to say in court? I didn’t witness it. All I could say was my neighbour knocked on my door to explain what he’d done, I went out and we both took photos. It was farcical.

@RatherBeOnVacation,how ridiculous that this should go to court. This is the type of abuse of court time that the Government should be stopping. I know yours didn’t go to court in the end, but to cancel that late in the day means that a magistrate and associated staff, room etc weren’t utilised. If there were say eight cases of a similar nature, all cancelled the day before, that is a whole day wasted. Then there is the obvious stress and potential difficulties, waiting for car repairs etc, for those involved. It is a shocking waste of time and money.
@ CurlsLDN I am so sorry you are going through this.

I apologise for the @ sign, which I am loath to use, but it now seems to be the only way I can put users names in a post!