A driver filmed hurtling through a red light while on the wrong side of the road will escape prosecution after paperwork got stuck in police post for four days.
Dashcam footage shows the Vauxhall Corsa almost crash head-on with a second car at a busy junction in Hodge Hill, Birmingham, after jumping the queue on the right-hand side of the road.
Shaun Carter, who captured the clip, claims he reported the driver to West Midlands Police the same day, and is outraged that police received his written complaint five days before the deadline for prosecution only for it to spend four days in their internal post.
Shaun was a passenger in his mother’s car as she turned left at the junction, with the lights clearly showing green, before being met by the oncoming Corsa.
It swerved and narrowly avoided hitting her before carrying on across the junction, leaving her ‘shaken’.
But now both Shaun and his mother feel ‘let down’ by the police because delays in internal administration mean the deadline was missed to serve justice on the driver.
In order to prosecute motorists who are not stopped by police at the time of an incident, officers must serve a Notice of Intended Prosecution within two weeks of the offence.
No prosecution: A Vauxhall Corsa driver (left) filmed hurtling through a red light in Birmingham while on the wrong side of the road will escape prosecution after paperwork got stuck in West Midlands Police post for four days
The near-miss happened on September 4 and Shaun was sent a self-reporting form two days later, which he handed in to his local police station on September 14.
The two-week limit started on the day after the offence was committed, meaning West Midlands Police still had five days to take action.
A spokesman for the force confirmed: ‘Notice needed to be served by the 19th.’
‘The form was handed in at the Stechford Police station on the 14th of September and was sent through the internal police postage and then received by the traffic processing unit on the 18th.’
She also said the prosecution wouldn’t have been delayed if Shaun had emailed the form instead of dropping it off at a police station.
Near miss: Dashcam footage (above) shows the Corsa almost crash head-on with a second car at a busy junction in Hodge Hill after jumping the queue on the right-hand side of the road
‘Let down’: Shaun Carter, who captured the clip, claims he reported the driver to West Midlands Police the same day, and is outraged that police received his written complaint five days before the deadline for prosecution only for it to spend four days in their internal post
She added: ‘The form should have been emailed back to police and that’s where the time was lost.’
But Shaun says he and his mother feel ‘let down’ by the force. He said: ‘Due to a number of delays caused by the police, and a lack of information by the police, they did not have time to serve the prosecution documents to the driver.
‘We feel let down by the police knowing this driver is allowed to continue driving in this manner.
‘We feel it will only be a matter of time before this dangerous driver causes an accident resulting in an innocent person being hurt or killed, and that will be the fault of the police not doing anything.
‘My mother is a careful driver and never had a collision or any kind of ticket or fine in her life, but incidents like this make us lose trust and faith in the police.’
Shaun said: ‘We feel it will only be a matter of time before this dangerous driver causes an accident resulting in an innocent person being hurt or killed, and that will be the fault of the police not doing anything’