The Assessor Winter 2026 PDF - Flipbook - Page 33
The car was collected by agents of its
new owners, who were the original
victim’s (Mr. A’s) insurance company.
who organised its resale to another
interested purchaser who enjoyed
ownership of it for 18 months prior to
again selling it on to someone else.
When he contacted the police about
this sighting, they informed him
that his car was not in fact shown as
stolen. His insurance company had
also discovered this fact and initially
refused to consider any compensation
payment.
Our victim Mr. A, had not been
informed of the car’s recovery by
his insurance company because, at
the time it was recovered, they had
become the new owners on payment
to Mr. A. and had accordingly noti昀椀ed
the Driver and Vehicle Licensing
Agency (DVLA) of that fact, which
incidentally is standard practice with
most insurance companies. In essence,
at the time of its recovery, Mr. A no
longer owned it.
Suf昀椀ce to say that unfortunately not
only had Mr. B failed to con昀椀rm the
theft of his car to the police within six
weeks, which he was required to do,
the of昀椀cer allocated to investigate his
crime had also failed to contact Mr.
B to enquire if his car was still in fact
stolen and it had not in the meantime
been recovered. Due to these
errors Mr. B’s theft report had been
erroneously weeded off the PNC after
six weeks.
Clearly both Mr. A and his insurance
company had failed to make any
mutual arrangements that he, the
owner, wished to be informed
when and if his vehicle was, if ever,
recovered. In hindsight, he wrongly
assumed that this would be the case.
Eventually the police detained and
interviewed the driver about his
questionable ownership of the car and
released. He was found to be innocent
and after undisclosed negotiations, the
Mazda was eventually returned to Mr. B
Another incident related to a young
man (Mr. B) who reported the theft
of his Mazda MX5 car to the police in
March of last year (2024). The of昀椀cer
who took details from him over the
telephone he remembers expressed
sympathy, gave him a crime book
reference number for his insurance
company and implied that someone
would be ‘in touch’.
© Thatcham Research
No more communication was received
by Mr. B from the police and apart from
forwarding the crime book reference
details to his insurance company, he
heard nothing more from them until
seven weeks later when he discovered
from friends that ‘his’ car had been
seen being driven in a nearby village.
There are always some people who
remember their car stolen being ‘some
considerable time ago’ and Mr. C the
owner of Jaguar XJS had his taken in
November 2016 when thieves broke
into his West London garage and
removed it. Mr. C had been pleased
with the police response at the time
but whilst encouragingly photographs
and 昀椀ngerprints were taken, he had
simply heard nothing from anyone in
nearly eight years!
My enquiries revealed, however, that
his Jaguar had in fact been discovered
in a poor condition under a tarpaulin in
a Devon barn some seven years after it
had been reported stolen.
The 昀椀nder described the car being
need of restoration when he found
it and suggested it had not turned
a wheel in a long time. Keen to be
its new owner, the 昀椀nder did his due
diligence to 昀椀nd the car’s history and
discovered that it had not been taxed,
had an MOT or been insured for some
years. He also enquired with the local
police who reported that the car was
not recorded as stolen on their Police
National Computer (PNC).
Over a period of years, the 昀椀nder
of the car had restored it and when
he eventually decided to sell it, the
original owner saw it advertised for
sale and queried the new owner’s
possession.
My enquiries revealed that the original
stolen marker on the PNC had been
‘weeded off’ due to inaction after six
years, which is standard practice for all
stolen vehicles.
Seeing how volatile the process of
reporting a vehicle stolen appeared to
be, I queried the process with a couple
of the UK’s 43 police constabularies
and in general, notwithstanding certain
minor parochial differences, this is what
should happen when a victim reports
their vehicle stolen.
When a victim reports the theft of
a vehicle to the police a ‘fast-time’
Lost or Stolen (LOS) vehicle report
is created on the Police National
Computer (PNC) by the local force
control room.
At this stage the theft report is
initially investigated and unless
there is an additional crime or other
police reference, the theft remains
uncon昀椀rmed with a six-week shelf life.
National police policy dictates that an
uncon昀椀rmed report remains on the
system for six weeks.
It is important that a LOS report is
con昀椀rmed within 48 hours of the time
of the reporting of theft, because until
it is con昀椀rmed the DVLA at Swansea
are not noti昀椀ed about it. Any activity
therefore on the DVLA’s record of
the vehicle in question would not
be referred to the police for any
investigation during this time.
There is also in place at the four-week
mark an additional data quality process
for all PNC reports called DAFs
(Daily Activity Files). These are a high
volume of prints that are sent to the
Data Bureau each week that detail
the reports the force ‘owns’ on the
PNC relating to names, vehicles and
property they have put on.
Should no action be made on the theft
report it will be weeded two weeks
later when the report has reached six
weeks as an uncon昀椀rmed crime.
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