Posted By TraceyS Wonder if anyone can help? One of our employees have had a serious road traffic accident. In investigating the accident, are we entitled to contact the police to get a copy of their report? The injured person is still in hospital in a serious condition and I don't feel that it is appropriate at this stage to contact the family to find out the details.

Posted By Robert K Lewis I would give a definite no to that. The Police reply may be along the lines of why and then refer to DP legislation. That is if they are being friendly. Bob

Posted By Colin Womble Tracey The answer is yes you can obtain a copy of the police report. The charge is usually £62. In order to ascertain the correct police address to write to, I suggest you have a word with the claims handler at your insurance company - they will probabaly have the information close at hand. Insurers, solicitors and accident investigators are obtaining police reports all the time so you should not have a problem. However, the police report will only become available once all criminal proceedings are complete. This can take up to a year and you really need to get your enquiries underway as quickly as possible eg. visit site, vehicle inspection etc. Bear in mind also that the some constabularies only fully investigate road accidents if there has been a fatality, in which case they need to report to the coroner, or if criminal proceedings have or are likely to be taken. If not, all you will probabaly get are the Accident Cards. These are compiled for statistical purposes only. If statements from witnesses have been taken, these are usually included. You will be expected to pay extra for any photographs that are available or if as full reconstruction report has been compiled. This latter document can cost an extra £400-500. I would suggest that when you submit your request for the Police Report that you ask if any additional documents are available. You can then decided if you wish to purchase but otherwise, it can often be very difficult to tell from the Accident Cards alone if, say, photographs were taken. There is no standard format for Police Reports and each force has its own method of compiling them but data on the Accident Cards is common to all because it is fed via the STATS 19 system into the Road Accidents GB publications. Colin