To think we shouldn’t be liable for this?

[Maneandfeathers]

Quick backstory.
Parked our car legally outside of our house. No lines or anything like that. Been parked there for years never any problem. We don’t have a driveway.

Neighbour at the other end of the street drives along our street blind drunk, swerves, hits our car almost writing it off, continues on his merry way, sort of parks up outside his house and gets home.

I witness this and confront him. He denies hitting our car despite me seeing him do it. Then he says we have obviously parked badly. He is very drunk, stinks of alcohol and police are called. Arrest him and he’s over the limit etc. We get his insurance details and our car is fixed to a tune of £6000. I don’t think much more of it and presume insurance are dealing with it.

6 MONTHS later I receive a letter to state he has denied hitting our car and we are now liable for the costs of the damage plus the hire car we were forced to have because he had smashed up ours while drink driving.
He is now denying the whole incident and apparently the police report is unrelated as they didn’t see him drive the car

How can this possibly be fair
We have spoken to our insurance company but apparently there is no proof despite the arrest and the photos of our car and his which was also damaged. He is denying it ever happening.
We stand to loose all of our no claims bonus also. We can’t really afford to have anything else go up and are struggling as it is

Would I be unreasonable to knock on his door and call him a shitty drunken arsehole for this

That is really shit but. Without witnesses how can you prove he hit your car? The facts as the Insurance company see them is that YOU say he hit your car, there is no evidence unfortunately.
The Police report probably says that he was drunk but as they arrived after he drove away how do they know he hit your car?
I agree he did do it and you shouldn’t be liable but there might be a difference between what you know and what you can prove.

I can’t prove it hopping I suppose that’s the frustrating thing.

It’s just so annoying that we are going to be punished and he will walk away laughing.

Suppose I was hoping for a bit of decency from him but obviously not

The state of his car must be some proof that he hit your car? If you had £6k of damage he can’t have driven away without a scratch to his?

Yes his car was damaged also although he hasn’t had his repaired!

We have a large saloon type. He hit the boot, both door panels and then the bonnet panel hence the large cost. He basically hit it and just scraped along the whole thing which proves how drunk he must have been as he didn’t bother stopping or steeping out of the car

His is a huge jeep thing so only damaged the front bumper which he has left dinted and dosent seem to care about. It’s a brand new 2018 car so I would have thought he would have fixed it but he isn’t bothered.

I suppose he could say the damage happened anywhere though. Ours was more dinted so you can’t really see paint allover his on the photos just the bumper hanging off.

Can you sue him? Or threaten to sue him to see how he reacts.

Surely it’s just the ncd you’ll lose? (I know that’s no consolation) the insurance will pay for all the rest won’t it?

Sounds like you need to get your ducks in a row and smash his car up with a gigantic hammer.

Can you get a photo of the damage to his car? If he hasn't had it repaired yet, there's your proof. The insurers should be able to tell the damage is from the same collision that wrote off your car.

Did the police not pursue his drink driving by assessing that the paint on his car bumper was from your car, as a starting point.

Have you asked any of your neighbours whether they have cctv or those video doorbells? Someone may have captured the incident.

I would think this is a Small Claims case at your local civic court.

www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money

I would be complaining to my insurers. Surely they can’t just say they believe him and not you and that’s the end of it? I had a situation with mine where they believed an accident was my fault (it wasn’t) and they wanted to just settle. I badgered then until we went to court and I won. If there is damage to his car in keeping with the damage that was done to yours then I don’t see how they can take his word over yours?

No idea how to help here but the usual suggestion for stuff like this is to contact your MP or the press.

I hate the daily mail but their section “money mail” seems to get results when they fight shit like this so send them an email with all the info and photos!

That’s totally shit that is! No wonder you’re so frustrated. Bloody arse hole!!

If he can get away with this OP I’d film him every time he drink drives (because it won’t have been just this once!) and report to the police. Keep reporting until he gets his license taken from him. Or am I just petty?

Have you got legal cover with your insurance. Your insurance company should be persuing his for the claim even if he's denying it and the police report of his drunk driving should be enough for your insurance company to prove his liability but you will need the legal cover to fund the litigation.

Were none of your neighbours aware at the time, to confirm atleast the noise or they might have CCTV?

Would the police report not have included ‘call came in about collision’ or something?

Failing that, take PotsOfJoy’s advice

I would sue him - did you take photos of his car on the night? Or is it your works against his?

Seems very strange

That’s disgusting. Idk where you stand now as the physical evidence is gone. However if the insurance company was going to dispute the claim I would argue they should have informed you prior to repairing it. This would have given you the option to get the paint from the car, which hit you analysed before repairing yours. I’d see what they say on that score.

You need to hand it all over to your insurers and let them deal with it.

Forensics will be able to detect paintwork from your car on his car. This, along with police records should help, surely?

Knock on all your neighbours doors, one of them must have seen it?
Do you have legal protection on your car insurance? If so, use this to pursue it- my car was hit by an idiot running a stop sign without looking. He tried to say I was at fault but, despite his lies, thanks to my legal cover liability was all sorted and agreed within a few days.

Tapas
I agree but how would op obtain the evidence legally? Hence my post about the destruction of evidence.

Smashing up his car seems appealing, as does filling his exhaust with dog shit and various other things

We live in a tiny cul de sac. Average age is about 80 and none of them have cctv, neither do we. He is 4 doors up.

We have photos of the damage from our car and his taken on the night.

The police also took statements but were useless and did nothing else. He was arrested though.

We have legal cover and they are appointing us a solicitor however they have stated it is likely we will be liable if his insurance company fight it on his behalf.

We stand to loose the claim, legal costs and also the cost of the hire vehicle we were forced to have. I’m not sure if we will have to pay the hire costs and excess if he is found ‘not guilty’ I’m not sure. It’s a lot of money that we don’t have.

I’ve also seen him drunk in Tesco a week ago (tiny village!) so he is still at it

Do you actually mean that your insurers simply can't get their money back? That's very different from you having to pay it. Same with the hire car.