Can You Make a Personal Injury Claim Without Evidence?
Making a Personal Injury Claim Without Evidence can seem difficult, particularly if you did not take photographs, obtain witness details or secure CCTV footage after an accident. It is understandable to assume that without these things, there may be no way to prove what happened.
However, evidence does not only mean photographs, CCTV or statements from people who witnessed the accident. Depending on the circumstances, other information may exist, including accident reports, medical records, workplace documents, maintenance records, correspondence and records held by the organisation responsible for the location where the accident happened.
Your own account of what happened can also provide an important starting point. It may help identify who was told about the accident, where further records could exist and whether other people may have information about what happened.
This means that considering a Personal Injury Claim Without Evidence you personally collected at the scene is very different from having no evidence available at all.
In this article, we look at what evidence may still be available after an accident, what happens if CCTV has been deleted or witness details were not obtained, how different parts of a personal injury claim may need to be proved and how a solicitor may investigate the information that remains.
Quick Links:
- Your Own Account of What Happened Still Matters
- Following the Paper Trail After an Accident
- Proving the Accident Is Only One Part of the Claim
- What If the CCTV Has Already Been Deleted?
- What If There Were Witnesses, but You Never Got Their Details?
- Building a Claim From the Evidence That Is Available
- Why Choose Stonehewer Moss?
If you have been injured in an accident and are unsure whether there is enough evidence to investigate a claim, call 01606 872200 or arrange a free 30-minute consultation with Stonehewer Moss Solicitors.
Your Own Account of What Happened Still Matters
Every investigation has to start somewhere and, more often than not, that starting point is the person who was actually involved in the accident.
Your account of what happened is important. You may be able to explain where the accident occurred, what you were doing at the time, what you believe caused it and what happened immediately afterwards. You may remember who came to help you, who you reported the accident to or whether there were particular circumstances that could later help identify where further information might be found.
Of course, your account is not automatically the end of the evidential enquiry. If it were, personal injury litigation would be considerably simpler than it actually is.
The difficulty with relying purely on memory is that details can become less clear as time passes. Immediately after an accident, you may remember exactly where you were, what you were doing and what was said to you. Months later, particularly when life has moved on and you have had other things to deal with, those smaller details may begin to fade.
That is one reason why it can be helpful to make a note of what happened as soon as you reasonably can. It does not need to be a carefully prepared legal statement. Simply recording the circumstances while they are fresh in your mind may help preserve information that could become useful later.
It can also provide a starting point for asking a much more important question: if this accident happened in the way you describe, what other records might have been created as a result?
Following the Paper Trail After an Accident
This is where the idea that you either have evidence or you do not can become a little misleading.
Workplace Accident Records
A workplace accident, for example, may result in far more documentation than the injured employee ever sees. There may be an accident report, internal correspondence about what happened or records relating to the equipment, work area or activity involved.
Depending on the circumstances, there may also be information about inspections, maintenance, training or previous incidents.
Records From Shops, Restaurants and Public Places
The same principle can apply outside the workplace.
If somebody is injured in a shop, restaurant or another public place, there may have been an incident report created after the accident. There may be records relating to inspections or cleaning. If the accident involved a defect or hazard, there may potentially be maintenance records or other documentation showing what was known about the area and what action had been taken.
I am deliberately using the word may here because every case is different. There is no universal filing cabinet containing all the answers to every accident that has ever happened. Sometimes records exist. Sometimes they do not. Sometimes the records that are available may help one side of the argument more than the other.
The point is that investigating a Personal Injury Claim Without Evidence is not always about asking the injured person to hand over a neatly organised collection of evidence that they gathered while dealing with the immediate aftermath of an accident.
Sometimes it involves following the trail that the accident itself may have created.
How Medical Records Can Form Part of the Evidence
Medical records can form part of that picture too. If you attended hospital, saw your GP or sought other medical treatment, there may be records relating to when you sought help and what symptoms or injuries were reported.
That does not necessarily prove who was responsible for the accident, but it may be relevant to establishing the injuries you suffered and the treatment you required.
And that distinction is important because proving a personal injury claim is not one single exercise.
Proving the Accident Is Only One Part of the Claim
People sometimes think about evidence as though there is one question to answer: can I prove that the accident happened?
That is certainly one question, but it is not the only one.
Proving What Happened
Take somebody who trips and falls, for example. There may be absolutely no dispute that they fell and injured themselves. Perhaps several people saw it happen. Perhaps the incident was recorded on CCTV.
The real issue may instead be why they fell and whether another person or organisation was legally responsible.
Establishing Responsibility
On the other hand, you may have clear medical evidence showing that you suffered a particular injury, but there may be a dispute about how that injury was caused.
This is why a Personal Injury Claim Without Evidence you personally collected at the scene may still require a wider look at what information exists and what part of the claim that information may help to prove.
Evidence of Injuries and Financial Losses
Then there is the separate issue of the losses that have resulted from the accident. Loss of earnings, treatment costs and other financial consequences may require their own supporting evidence.
So, when somebody tells me that they have “no evidence”, I do not necessarily assume that means there is nothing to investigate. I want to know which part of the claim they are concerned about.
Do they have no evidence of how the accident happened? Do they have no evidence of what caused it? Do they have no photographs of the scene but clear medical records relating to the injuries? Was the accident reported to somebody at the time? Are there likely to be records he
What If the CCTV Has Already Been Deleted?
CCTV is often one of the first things people ask about, usually after they have contacted the business or organisation involved and been told that the footage is no longer available.
Why CCTV Footage May No Longer Be Available
Unfortunately, CCTV is not normally kept forever. Different organisations may have different retention periods and footage may eventually be overwritten.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) explains that organisations should only keep CCTV footage for as long as it is needed and that many CCTV systems have an automatic overwrite feature. This is one reason why identifying potentially relevant CCTV as quickly as possible can be important.
CCTV Can Show More Than the Accident Itself
However, the usefulness of CCTV is not always limited to footage showing the precise moment an accident occurred.
Depending on where the cameras were positioned, footage might show the condition of an area before the accident. It might show who was present or what happened immediately afterwards. It may provide some context about the circumstances, even if the accident itself took place just outside the camera’s field of view.
What If the Footage Has Already Gone?
Of course, if potentially useful footage has already been deleted, that particular source of evidence may be lost. There is no point pretending otherwise.
But that does not automatically mean that every other possible source of evidence has disappeared with it.
It may simply mean that the investigation has to focus on what remains.
What If There Were Witnesses, but You Never Got Their Details?
This is another situation where people can understandably feel that they have missed their chance.
Perhaps somebody saw the accident happen and even came over to help, but in the confusion that followed, nobody thought to ask for their name and number. By the time the injured person later considers making a claim, that individual has long since disappeared.
When a Witness Cannot Be Identified
Sometimes, there may be no practical way of identifying that person. If the witness was simply a member of the public who happened to be passing by, and nobody recorded their details, the opportunity to obtain their evidence may have been lost.
But that is not always the case.
Other Records May Help Identify Witnesses
In a workplace, for example, records may help establish who was working in a particular area or on a particular shift. An accident report may identify people who were present. Other documentation may provide information that helps identify who saw or dealt with the incident.
Again, this will depend entirely on the circumstances. There is no guarantee that a witness can be found simply because they were there.
Do Not Assume the Opportunity Has Been Lost
But it is another example of why I would be cautious about writing off a potential claim simply because the injured person did not personally leave the accident scene with a list of names and telephone numbers.
What If There Were Witnesses, but You Never Got Their Details?
This is another situation where people can understandably feel that they have missed their chance.
Perhaps somebody saw the accident happen and even came over to help, but in the confusion that followed, nobody thought to ask for their name and number. By the time the injured person later considers making a claim, that individual has long since disappeared.
When a Witness Cannot Be Identified
Sometimes, there may be no practical way of identifying that person. If the witness was simply a member of the public who happened to be passing by, and nobody recorded their details, the opportunity to obtain their evidence may have been lost.
But that is not always the case.
Other Records May Help Identify Witnesses
In a workplace, for example, records may help establish who was working in a particular area or on a particular shift. An accident report may identify people who were present. Other documentation may provide information that helps identify who saw or dealt with the incident.
Again, this will depend entirely on the circumstances. There is no guarantee that a witness can be found simply because they were there.
Do Not Assume the Opportunity Has Been Lost
But it is another example of why I would be cautious about writing off a potential claim simply because the injured person did not personally leave the accident scene with a list of names and telephone numbers.
Building a Claim From the Evidence That Is Available
When someone comes to us after an accident, the first step is not to ask whether they have managed to collect the perfect set of evidence.
People Do Not Always Think About Evidence Straight Away
In an ideal world, perhaps everyone would take photographs, report every accident immediately, obtain the details of every witness and preserve every relevant document before leaving the scene.
In the real world, people are injured. They are frightened, in pain or simply trying to get themselves home. Gathering evidence is not necessarily the first thing on their mind.
Looking at What Information Is Available
What we can do is look at the circumstances of what happened and assess the information that is available.
That may involve considering the injured person’s own account, identifying who was informed about the accident, looking at whether medical treatment was sought and thinking about what records or information may potentially be held by other people or organisations.
There may be obvious gaps in the evidence. There may be further enquiries that could potentially be made. In some cases, the available information may simply not be enough to support a claim.
But those are conclusions that should be reached after considering the circumstances, rather than because somebody has looked at their empty camera roll and decided that they have no case.
A Personal Injury Claim Without Evidence Is Not Automatically Impossible
A lack of photographs does not automatically mean that an accident cannot be proved. The absence of CCTV does not necessarily mean there is nothing else to investigate. Not having a witness’s telephone number does not always mean that nobody can be identified.
Equally, none of those things guarantee that a claim will succeed.
Personal injury claims depend on the individual facts and the evidence available. The role of a solicitor is not to manufacture evidence where none exists. It is to look carefully at what information is available, consider what further evidence may potentially be obtained and give realistic advice about whether there is a basis for taking matters further.
Why Choose Stonehewer Moss?
At Stonehewer Moss, we do not believe that every conversation about a potential claim should begin and end with a quick checklist.
Speak to a Qualified Personal Injury Solicitor
When you contact us, you can speak to a qualified solicitor about what actually happened and the circumstances surrounding your accident.
We can discuss the information you already have and consider whether there may be other evidence or records that could be relevant.
That is particularly important because every accident is different.
Every Claim Depends on the Available Evidence
Some claims may involve clear CCTV footage and multiple witnesses. Others may depend much more heavily on records created after the event, medical evidence or documentation held by the organisation involved.
Sometimes the evidence will be strong. Sometimes there will be difficulties that need to be carefully considered from the outset.
Experienced Personal Injury Solicitors
As an APIL accredited firm, our solicitors have experience dealing with personal injury claims and assessing the evidence required to investigate them properly.
And because it’s Free to See if you’ve got a claim, there is nothing to lose by having an initial conversation about what happened.
So, if you have been injured and your first thought is, “I didn’t take any photographs, so there is no point speaking to anyone,” I would suggest not making that decision before finding out what other information may exist.
The evidence you need may not necessarily be in your possession.
It may already be part of the paper trail left behind by the accident itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Possibly. Not having photographs, CCTV footage or witness details does not automatically mean that a claim cannot be investigated. Other evidence may exist, including accident reports, medical records, workplace documents or records held by another organisation.
Write down what you remember while the details are still fresh, keep any relevant documents and records, and seek legal advice as soon as reasonably possible if you are considering a claim.
Depending on the circumstances, a solicitor may be able to identify or request relevant records from businesses, employers or other organisations. What information is available will depend on the individual circumstances of the accident.
Other sources of evidence may still be available. The absence of an accident report or another particular record does not necessarily mean that there is nothing else to investigate.
Yes. Further evidence may sometimes be obtained while a claim is being investigated, depending on what records, documents, medical evidence or witness information is available.
