Personal injury news

Woman could make whiplash compensation claim for crash

A woman who suffered a severe neck injury in a car crash was stunned to receive a handful of parking fines after police somehow managed to lose her car.

As well as having the worry of making a possible whiplash compensation claim, Alexandra Crook, 22, was shocked to be given five parking fines each worth £100 after her car was left parked behind a police station.

Just several days before discovering the huge fines, Alexandra, from St John's Wood, north-west London, was involved in a serious road traffic accident and was taken to hospital suffering from whiplash injuries.

The Metropolitan police took Alexandra's car following the accident and parked it somewhere safe. But unfortunately, due to alleged administration problems, police somehow managed to forget where they had parked the car.

Several days after Alexandra was released from hospital, she received a call to say that her car had been found behind the back of Paddington Green Police Station. Upon arriving to collect her car, she found that her car had been littered with parking fines from Westminster City Council.

She telephoned the council and explained the situation but they refused to accept her story and told her to pay the £500 worth of fines.

Fortunately, after making a number of appeals to the council, all of the fines were eventually dropped and Alexandra received an apology from both the Metropolitan Police and Westminster Council.

She said, "I had acute whiplash and was in a brace and I had to spend hours on the phone to police trying to find my car.

"They kept shifting the responsibility, one police station blamed another."

Alexandra may now decide to concentrate her time on making a claim for whiplash compensation.