Missing person cctv footage

[AllAboutTheMemories]

Could someone give me any advice please?

We have requested cctv from the police regarding a missing relative.
They had replied saying if we asked a solicitor to request the footage on behalf of the family they would release it.

We have had a solicitor request this footage on 3 separate occasions by email and phone.
The police are denying receiving the request so won't release the footage to us.

We don't believe the footage has been looked at properly by the police and that crucial evidence have been missed.
This is the reason for requesting the footage.

Could anyone that works in law advice us of the next steps please.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you

Take a letter from the solicitor to the relevant police station, hand it in personally and get a receipt.

@BadgernTheGardenThank you for your reply. We have asked if we could do this the detective in charge said no, he said it won't be accepted by the higher ups and that it has to come from the solicitor directly.

We believe they are doing this because they know they have made huge errors and missed crucial evidence.

Can the solicitor take it themselves then?

Is this an ongoing investigation?

If so the likelihood of them releasing evidence during this stage is very very low.

What does your solicitor make of all this?

The solicitor can send it by courier or registered post.

Unfortunately the solicitor won't do any more at this stage due to us only paying for this request.

We have used so much funding on the whole case that we no longer have the means to continue until we can save some extra funding.

They are now classing it as a cold case.

Perhaps you could contact your Member of Parliament and tell them what's going on.

Identify the Police and Crime Commissioner for your local force and contact them.

could you ask the solicitors admin staff to phone to confirm the email sent fromxyz@solicitors etc at 1003am in 3 december 2025 was received by the email address police.blahblah. surely the admin staff phoning it emailing wouldn’t cost much. it’s just an admin function.

Do you have a copy of the email including the date and time etc so you could it and ask them to confirm they received it? Maybe they think that you atent the one who instructed solicitors so that’s why they won’t tell you but if you have the email that could prove you know about it?

what about a SARS request. although that’ll take ages. As will an FOI but it might be worth it.

“Have you received an email from (email address) to police email address sent at (time and date) They will likely refuse to provide the info. but you couod try.

Them failing that an official complaint.

Ask your solicitor to forward their emails requesting the footage to you and then you can speak to the force control room to get their email address, explain the situation and also get the call handler’s email addresses. Send your request to the email addresses given, you’ll get confirmation from the call handler that it was re received and that should start the ball rolling. If all else fails, which police force is it? You could try police.uk and use the contact us pages to get the name of your local inspector and email them.

FOI isn’t going to give you anything appropriate in this case, it shouldn’t be used for any personally identifiable information.

Thank you all for your replies.
I'm going to sit with a relative this week and go through the suggestions.