To expect Mum to pay up after 4YO child scratched every panel on our car

[LupoLoopy]

Context: My wife works at a nursery school as an assistant.. Her car was parked in the staff car park, which the kids egress though when they leave, under parental supervision.

During lunch time pick-up, one of the departing 4 year old's took a rock and scratched every panel and light fixture on her car, all whilst his Mum was standing within 6M of the car, chatting to a friend.

The incident was captured on CCTV.

The cost of a proper repair is so close to the value of the car, I fear it being written off, which is something we could afford but would hurt us a lot financially.

Although the damage is only cosmetic, the car was pristine before the incident (I'm a fussy sod who takes good care of his stuff) and I don't see why we should tolerate driving a 'shed' around 'for the children'.

We're trying to seek restitution from the School's insurance (if it will cover it) but to cover our butts, we've reported the incident to the police (so and official record exists) and reported it to our insurer.

If we have to use our car insurance AND we're fortunate enough to not have the car written off, it's going to tank my partners insurance premiums.

Frankly, I want to encourage the police to be fully involved and start proceedings immediately for civil action via the small claims court. I just dont think I can have confidence that Mum is going to be wired in the same way I am - i.e. it's her liability and don't see why we should be financially crippled by her parental inattention.

AIBU?

Lupo did you understand the point about the effect of your name change?

MN has settings which highlight the OP's posts a different colour from the rest of the posts. Therefore on a long thread like this a reader can skim through and read the OP's updates only.

However if you change your name any subsequent posts will be the same colour as everyone else's and wil be difficult to identify. In other words - don't name change halfway through a thread! I think highlighting will work again if you change it back.

As to the substance of the matter, I think you have been given a ridiculously hard time on this thread and have borne the brunt with aplomb. Unfortunately the only realistic course of action is for your insurers to deal with the repair costs (let's hope not a WO) and think about recovering your losses above and beyond that ( such as excess and increase in premium) from the mother. I absolutely understand that you want her to acknowledge that her lack of supervision has caused you loss and harm and hope the school were able to get a reasonable response from her at the meeting, even if she won't pay any money. An update on the costs would be great.

I'm pretty staggered at some of the responses on here. There's been some hugely hypocritical gender stereotyping and I think it's a credit to the OP that he has remained calm and polite in the face of it. There are a few posters who really have made themselves look very silly indeed, and I never fail to be amazed by the number of people who don't read an OP properly and consequently invent details that simply don't exist.

Hope you manage to get things sorted Lupo.

kinky Yup! Now that was a strange phone call.
Must have been quite a throw.
What annoyed me was when the school told me that it was the car of someone quite important in the school. As if that made a difference.

I paid however much it was and DS1 paid me back.

OP So sorry that you & your wife had this happen & that it was followed by some confrontational responses on here. I hope things get sorted to your satisfaction & that you update us with the outcome.Best wishes.

Lupo, please change your name back to your original one on this thread, so that your posts are highlighted again.

Lots of people are interested in this issue and how it turns out, and your posts being highlighted will ease skimming such a long thread.

Alright then. I think that's it changed back. Testing ... 1-2-3

No updates. No quotes. No drama, yet, beyond that which plays out in the brain-case every so often. I'll update as soon as I can, but I'm not going to lay any more pressure on anyone (garages etc) involved than necessary. Noone died and DW can get to work, after all.

I do want to say: My deepest thanks for your support . We're of course okay.

I don't need everyone to like me these days, thankfully, so I've gotten over any stuff that seemed a bit off base.

Glad I wasn't way out of town in being a little shell-shocked by the intensity of some responses to my first post on Mumsnet. That said, passionate discourse is more fruitful than cold disinterest.

Ah thanks Lupo - you're back in forest green again, much easier to find updates now! :)

Great, thanks. If you haven't customised your own view to highlight your own posts and the posts of OPs on other threads, you do it by clicking on the arrow next to "talk" at the top of the page and going to "customise"

Any update?

Omg this thread must be me. It sounds the same.

Really Kitty?

Small world if it is....

Why did your child scratch a car then kitty?

Really Kitty?

Kitty! You can't leave it like that, you have to explain, elucidate, clarify; it's the law!

Christ op, you've had a grilling!

kitty you need to expand!

Dude, (that's you OP) good luck with getting the money back for your car.

You're wrong to worry about people on here being aggressive to you as the VAST majority have supported you. Only one or two posters got a bit over-excited about trying to take you down. It was quite amusing to watch, really, especially with the poster who went to hunt in her shed for her old tort notes so she could prove what a twit you are for failing to mitigate your damages.

That bit about your writing style being too 'managerial' for MN was also hilarious.

Good luck resolving your dispute. Staggering that a four year old could do that much damage to a car with no grown up in the vicinity (let alone mum) stepping in.