Mum turns detective as police fail to act over hit and run
THE mother of a woman whose leg was broken by a hit-and-run taxi driver was forced to track down CCTV footage of the incident herself after police failed to act.
Gail Thompson launched an appeal on Facebook to find the driver who struck her daughter Amber Carter-Thompson after allegedly waiting for a week for officers to act. During that time she repeatedly rang Northamptonshire Police to ask how their investigation was progressing.
After losing patience, Ms Thompson went online on April 20 to ask: ‘Did anyone on the Wellingborough Road, Northampton about 10pm Friday night see a minicab hit my daughter and drive off? She’s now in hospital with a fractured tibia and has to have an operation to set it. Please share and catch this scumbag.’
Within six hours, local shopkeepers provided CCTV of the moment the 28-year-old was knocked off her feet.
Ms Carter- Thompson last night accused police of promising to contact shops close to where the incident took place, but failing to do so.
‘My mother decided to ring the shops and all of the places said the police hadn’t been around,’ she said. ‘You want answers, but you don’t want to hinder any investigation.
‘To hear that they hadn’t contacted the shops for CCTV in over a week, as I was told they would, was fairly disheartening.
‘A lot of people record over CCTV if they don’t need it. If that had gone, there would have been no evidence of what had happened. But within the space of six hours we got CCTV of it.’
Northamptonshire Police have now appealed for witnesses to come forward.