To ask for advice - legal / driving DH being taken to claims court

[Grainyawaydays]

Around two years ago DH had notification from his car insurance that someone 300 miles away was making a claim against him. He was 100% home all day that day and we weren’t notified of the claim until about three months after it had gone in and he’d actually had a new car by this point. He trades them fairly regularly due to his line of work.
insurance said they would fight it and eventually it was closed about 18 months after the alleged accident.
He has received a letter today from the small claims court and the other driver is alleging he caused £12k worth of damage to her car and she didn’t get his details because he fled the scene. She is now taking him to court personally for £14k (£12k plus costs incurred).
Hes on about his fourth car since this happened and we have no way of proving that this wasn’t him. But equally she can’t prove it was - because it wasn’t! The police don’t seem to have been informed and I do think if someone caused £12k of damage to my car and drove off I’d have informed them at the time.
we can only assume she has recorded the reg incorrectly - since she’s saying it was a fairly major crash but the other driver left the scene? So it’s possible she hasn’t recorded the correct reg in the moment. Or it was a cloned plate.
Any advice? It looks like DH is going to have to go to court - 300 miles away - and get a solicitor.

Apply to have the matter transferred to your local court.

write to her saying 1. You must be mistaken I have never driven there and 2. Give me the evidence you have to say it was us.

check the dates- she only has 3 years to file her claim otherwise she’s out of time and you have a limitation defence

make sure you file your papers in time- acknowledgment of service and defence.

gather as much evidence as you can- your file to your insurers will be part of it- emails saying “I wasn’t there” etc all tells a consistent story

dig in - don’t be scared of her- she does have to prove it was you

oh and try your insurers again- just because they closed the file doesn’t mean they don’t have a responsibility to reopen it- in fact, they probably do

I'm wondering if it's anything to do with this driving scam OP, discussed on a recent edition of R4 You and Yours. Probs worth a listen and maybe contact them, they often sort people's hassles, this sounds like a mega hassle to me, link to episode below, they discuss 3 or 4 different issues each time
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001yxfy?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

What you need to do now is get a solicitor and counter claim for loss of earnings for the days you need to attend court. Show any evidence you have at the time and confirmation that the insurers closed due to lack of contact. They'll have any logs of your tracking at the time etc and work logs.

maybe if he sent any texts on that day or SMS type messages you can get the data from those showing where he was.

I'm not sure the DVLA will just hand out addresses to individuals with no evidence. Where I work we had a debt collector letter turned up claiming that car by registration "XXXX" owed a certain amount in a car parking fine. I contacted the DVLA to ask about the address for this car and they sent a letter confirming that it was not registered to our address, but they said under GDPR they couldn't give the new address for me to forward their fine onto.

Data on his computer will support that he was not the offender, unless he works whilst he drives.

Yes definitely do this. The IT person for his company should be able to get this for you or someone at his company who arranged the meeting. If you have just one meeting record it will show he couldn't have been 300 miles away. This must be such an awful worry for you.

You can see what's happened, some poor lady has been in an accident and in a state of shock took down the registration incorrectly. She probably totally believes she is right, although strange her solicitor didn't respond to the request for more information about the colour of the car etc. I have to admit that makes me suspicious. Either way I'm sure from the previous back and forth between the insurance companies and their conclusion, it must have been obvious it wasn't your dh. I truly hope you can get the meeting records so you can sort it out once and for all. Good luck.

Talk to his insurers. My insurance company took another insurance company to court .

Agree re the number plate. V easy to misremember and take it down wrong. I did , but remembered the name of the company on the vehicle so it / the driver could be traced.

You can find out car colour by looking up registration. A court will throw it out. I can't believe a solicitor thinks they have a case.

1. She has no photos of your car nor the damage to her own.
2. You have some evidence to show you were 300 miles away.

I had someone claim I scraped their car. They couldn't prove it was me and the case was closed. I was sympathetic as it was a nasty scrape. If they'd pursued it privately they would have had to prove I'd done the damage which they couldn't. The onus is on the woman to prove it.

I feel for you. A year ago, some maniac careered down our road in the middle of the night, hitting my parked car and shunting it into my neighbour's parked car which hit a lamp post. He wrote off 2 cars plus his own. My husband was woken by the crash, went downstairs in time to film him running away from the scene. Husband phoned the police, shared photos etc. all info went to our insurance co who paid me something for my year old to me car. It was all a giant pita, expensive and inconvenient.
Just now, a year later, my insurance co have emailed wanting to know if we will appear in the small claims court because he alleged I PULLED OUT IN FRONT OF HIS RIGHTFULLY DRIVEN CAR!!! AT 3 IN THE MORNING!!
We said yes because we don't want him to get away with it.
But like you, I can't believe we are having to disprove something that didn't happen!
I'm amazed the industry hasn't got smarter ways of dealing with these chancers.
Good luck with it.

My elderly parents had something like this but the police were involved. It turns out their car number plate had been cloned.

good luck

Aren’t minutes of meetings taken and attendees listed?

Forward all this info onto the solicitor again?? Or phone the court direct and ask if it’s a scam?

American and UK date formats could be to blame if this is the case....
Eg 11.06.22 instead of 06.11.22