In reply to Ridge:
Hi again all,
had a meeting with the local plod, the chap and his son today. He didn;t want to host it at his house so I suggested that as he knew where I lived ;0) they could come here.
They all came in, I introduced myself, the young chap introduced himself as did the policeman but dad said "you don't need to know my name". Ok, thats not the important bit of the conversation so I ignored that. Dad then said, you can start the apologies. You could just tell that he really did not want to be here!
Anyway, I apologised to the young chap, explaining that my reaction was due to him being in the middle of the road, me not seeing him and nearly knocking him over. He accepted that and he then apologised saying they came round the corner too fast, was talking to his mate, didn't see me at all and that he was thankful that I stopped the van. He then apologised for all the abuse he gave me saying he was scared and thought he might be in trouble. Good on him so we both shook hands and agreed that it could have gone better, neither of us blamed the other and that was that.
Dad was then prompted by the policeman asking if he would like to add anything. He started giving me grief again about talking to his son in that manner, started to swear again but was then reminded that he had assaulted me and the whole idea was that he was going to either apologise or I could decided what I wanted to do.
I started talking to him saying I would have done the same thing if it were my child, etc etc and again apologising about my behaviour and said your son and I have sorted out the situation so can we please just move on with it at which point he told me if I ever talked to his son again he would do me for harassment and that he wasn't going to apologise, why should he, he reacted how he thought fit.
So I told the policeman they could all leave and the policeman said he would ask him to write a letter of apology at which point i said I wouldn't accept it (why the hell should I let him get away with such a chickens way out?) and I wanted him to apologise verbally and said if he wants to ring me at home and apologise, then that is fine. I think this is more than reasonable considering he could have a criminal record instead.
Shook hands with the young chap again who again said sorry, seems like a really good kid, so I said sorry again at which point dad said "I told you not to talk to hm again". They both drove away and the policeman said he would be getting his boss to ring the chap in the mornng and explain what the consequences would be if I were to press charges in the hope he would re-consider his course of action. We both agreed that it's probably all about being embarrassed in front of his son and doesn't like the idea of backing down so I told him that he has until the end of play tomorrow evening to talk him into it and if nothing happens, then I'll go ahead and press charges. Why the frig should I let someone who clearly doesn't see what he has done as wrong get away with it?
Anyway, could have been worse!