Man Caught on Dashcam Keying an Aston Martin

A man in London has been caught red-handed using a key to scrape along the length of an Aston Martin V8 Vantage by a dashboard camera recording video. The video footage appears to show a man with a child in a pushchair taking some keys from his pocket and looking around to see if anyone was watching before running them down the side of the sports car.

Upon returning to his £100,000 car in the supermarket car park on Morning Lane in Hackney the owner noticed the damage inflicted on his car thought to have cost £9,000. Thanks to his dashboard camera he managed to capture a high-definition image of the vandal such that he could identify exactly who was responsible as well as having strong evidence for his insurance company.

The Metropolitan Police released the footage to appeal for witnesses and reportedly a 48-year-old man has been arrested and taken for questioning.

What was used to capture the crime?

The dashcam keying incident was captured by a popular high-definition dashboard camera. As you can see from the video the camera captures a very high-quality, wide-angle image: this is very helpful for identifying criminals when they vandalise cars. Our SPY Z range of Spy cameras are ideal for being used as dashboard cameras. These units differ slightly from normal dashcams as they are standalone spy cameras, which are battery-powered, record to a MicroSD card and have some very useful features. Vibration triggered recording enables the camera to start recording when a shock is detected and ‘circular recording’ means that older footage can be overwritten automatically. What’s more they can be powered via USB and are covert in design so that they are not easily spotted.

Car vandalism in England and Wales

According to the Office of National Statistics the number of cases of vehicle interference as recorded by the Police in England and Wales has fallen from 89,892 in 2003/04 to 32,472 in 2014. It is not difficult to imagine that more sophisticated car security technology and surveillance has played a significant role in this reduction.

Car theft has also become less common since its peak in 1993. On the graph below you can see how vehicle theft increased steadily through the 1980s but has now dramatically reduced since 1995 to more recently.

Dashcam Surveillance for Vehicles

Dashcams are widespread in Russia to gather evidence for use in courts as well as fighting against police corruption and insurance fraud. Due to their ubiquity many vehicle dashcams managed to capture the meteor that lit up the sky in 2013 from different angles.

Dashboard cameras are also becoming more popular in Western countries as an affordable way to monitor your vehicle just as the owner of the Aston Martin did in the keying incident. Car surveillance is an effortless way of providing robust evidence when traffic accidents occur out on the road. They can be used to settle insurance claims by proving who was at fault at the time of the crash and in some cases reducing the owner’s insurance premium. In some countries, however, they are being banned or restricted to due concerns over data protection principles.

Take a look at our product range

You can take a look at all our car security products on our website. Alternatively give us a call on 0117 325 2470 and we’ll be happy to help.