The 55-year-old dri­ver of a van that was re­port­ed to be in­volved in a hit and run ac­ci­dent to the po­lice on Thurs­day, went in­to the po­lice sta­tion af­ter mid­night on Fri­day.

How­ev­er, the dri­ver told po­lice the re­port must have been a case of mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty as he nev­er struck any pedes­tri­an at the Pasea Road in­ter­sec­tion along the Churchill Roo­sevelt High­way and was con­fused as to how a re­port of such na­ture went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia on Fri­day.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, the daugh­ter of the dri­ver said her fa­ther has de­nied the in­ci­dent oc­curred and went to the sta­tion with the ve­hi­cle in ques­tion so po­lice of­fi­cers could in­spect it.

How­ev­er, the dri­ver's daugh­ter claimed that the of­fi­cers on du­ty that night said there was no of­fi­cial re­port lodged in the sta­tion di­ary about the in­ci­dent and as such said there was no need to in­spect the ve­hi­cle.

Asked whether her fa­ther was at the in­ter­sec­tion that day around the time of the al­leged in­ci­dent, which could have led to his ve­hi­cle be­ing pho­tographed at the in­ter­sec­tion by eye­wit­ness­es, the dri­ver's daugh­ter replied: "Maybe it is pos­si­ble be­cause we all work in the area and we pass there, but he said noth­ing like that nev­er hap­pened and it may have been an­oth­er van that looked like his. My dad has been very dis­traught and stressed over this that he didn't sleep that night when we told him what peo­ple were say­ing about him on so­cial me­dia."

In the ini­tial re­port, the vic­tim, whose name is yet to be dis­closed, was said to a man said to be in his 70s. He sus­tained se­ri­ous in­juries to the feet and low­er body.

The ve­hi­cle in ques­tion was iden­ti­fied as a black Chevy Col­orado.

Po­lice said ac­cord­ing to an eye­wit­ness, at about noon the dri­ver of the van knocked down the man who was at­tempt­ing to cross the high­way in the midst of traf­fic. Po­lice said the man man­aged to get up and went to the shoul­der where he lay down.

The eye­wit­ness told po­lice that the van dri­ver, re­al­is­ing what hap­pened, be­gan to shout at the man, telling him he need­ed to look where he was go­ing. The dri­ver then drove off, leav­ing the man ly­ing on the ground.

The man sub­se­quent­ly got up from the mid­dle of the road­way and went to the side of the road. He was bleed­ing from both feet.

Po­lice said a mo­torist pulled over and went to the aid of the vic­tim.

The man was then tak­en to the Tu­na­puna Po­lice Sta­tion where an of­fi­cial re­port was lodged. The vic­tim was then tak­en to the hos­pi­tal for treat­ment.

Con­tact­ed on the lat­est claims, how­ev­er, a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer as­signed to the North­ern Di­vi­sion said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion will now be launched in­to the al­leged in­ci­dent to as­cer­tain what ac­tu­al­ly oc­curred that day.

CCTV footage will al­so be viewed.