What does the law say?

andy owen

andy owen

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Andy
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The wife of a colleague of mine had a Road traffic accident with a member of local government recently. The accident was entirely his fault which will be settled at a later date. However, in the immediate aftermath the guy who was involved in the accident decided to take some photos of the scene. My colleagues wife had their 10 year old child in the car who was quite visibly distressed by the incident. The photographs which were taken clearly show the child upset. Is there any law surrounding this? (taking pics of children etc?). An urgent response is needed on this one guys.

Cheers
Andy
 
Was it taken at public place? If yes, then he can do all he wants. It would be an issue if he harassed the child or tried to attack anybody (that is called assault). Taking photos of an accident scene is a common sense really.

Please don't become paranoid because this country is already insane as it is. By all means get him to pay for the damage. Good luck.
 
No. It was in a public place (I assume). It is a perfectly legitimate place to be taking photographs and there was a perfectly legitimate reason for doing so, irrespective of any age of the individuals in area.
 
Nope and as previously mentioned entirely an appropriate time and place to take pics. Some accident kits actually include a camera for doing just that.

Perfectly within the law.
 
The Data Protection Act permits information which under most circumstances would be considered confidential, to be obtained and used in the preparation of either defence or prosecution in matters of law. I can't see that he did anything wrong, in fact he did what everybody should do and made an accurate record of the damage and all the people involved.
 
The police have occasionally in the past arrested photographers in similar-ish circumstances, usually for behaviour lightly to cause a breach of the peace. There was a case recently where a tog caused some alleged distress to an ill person and was nicked for it. But under the cirumstance you discribe I doubt they would do it, and they won't do it now afterwards. What he's doing is not illegal as such, indeed the police often take photos of RTC's for the same evidence reasons. Many insurance companies recomend you do exactly that to show a clearer picture of what happened (pun not intended)
 
And in view of a recent court case (man causing many accidents and then claiming to be different people) I would always take photos of all those involved in an RTC. That way it can't be claimed later that my 70 year old granny who was in the back of the car has severe whiplash. When photos clearly show nobody was in the back of the car etc.
 
munch said:
And in view of a recent court case (man causing many accidents and then claiming to be different people) I would always take photos of all those involved in an RTC. That way it can't be claimed later that my 70 year old granny who was in the back of the car has severe whiplash. When photos clearly show nobody was in the back of the car etc.
Click to expand...

Yes, fully agree and also as a precaution against a claim being made for damage that did not occur in the accident in question.
 
As has already been said, the other man has done nothing wrong in taking photographs. He hasn't broken any laws whatsoever.

I have been to court over a couple of traffic collisions where the driver claims that he wasn't the one driving at the time, that he had lots of witnesses, etc, so we always take down details of everyone present, and take photographs / videos if we think they may be required. The local government officer here was just shoring up his insurance claim - quite sensibly - by taking some pictures of the scene. The fact that an upset child is in some of the pictures makes no difference.

When I was involved in a minor damage-only collision many years ago, I wish I'd taken some pictures as well - the other guy involved claimed that his car had been completely written off (which it hadn't), and some photos of the incident at the time would have been invaluable.
 
I have known of insurance company supplying disposable cameras for this reason in a pack supplied to keep in your car.
Public Place take what ever you like.
I have even talking photos of a car that hit my company van back in teh 70's my manager said for once I had done somethig right lol
 
No, there's no law.

Your colleague doesn't read the Daily Mail by any chance? Sounds like a typical Mail headline if ever I heard one... "Man photographs accident scene: Child upset in photo outrage" Seriously - I just can't decide to laugh or weep every time a question like this is asked!
 
Laugh or weep - there is some very useful information here
Thanks Steve Smith for the link - have printed that off and will carry it with me in the future.
 
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