- A woman in Dorset, UK admitted keying a Tesla Model 3 parked next to her car.
- Anna Valente was filmed while the car was in Sentry Mode, and the footage was used in court.
- Police said that most car vandalism goes unsolved, but the Tesla camera made a big difference.
A driver was caught and fined after keying a Tesla in a rare prosecution secured using footage from the car's onboard cameras.
The incident took place in June when Anna Valente, 57, found the Tesla Model 3 next to her Nissan Juke in Poole, England, MailOnline reported.
She admitted damaging the car at a court hearing in June and was ordered to pay around $1,450 for the damage.
In the footage, obtained by the Bournemouth Daily Echo local newspaper, Valente can be seen pretending to get something out of her car, while using a set of keys behind her back to scratch the Tesla.
According to the Daily Echo, the owner of the Tesla discovered that damage had been caused to the car after his partner returned home in it. The owner was not named.
The outlet said that he realized what happened after watching back the Sentry Mode footage, and was able to give police images of her face and her car license plate.
Sentry Mode is a Tesla feature which enables the car to continuously monitor and record its environment while unattended.
The setting was created to "protect against break-ins and theft," Tesla's website says.
"The sentry system is brilliant," the unnamed owner told the Daily Echo.
"The front camera caught the woman walking towards our car. The camera on the wing mirror showed her putting stuff in the passenger side of her car before she keyed the car."
He told the outlet that police said it's usually difficult to identify culprits of car scratchings, because parking lot security cameras are typically positioned too far away.
The use of car camera footage in a prosecution was the first in the UK, MailOnline said.
A Dorset Police spokesperson told Insider that the damage took place around 7 p.m. on June 20, 20201, and was reported to its officers the next day.
The spokesperson said: "The vehicle involved had on-board CCTV, which provided clear and exceptional quality images capturing the defendant causing damage."
"The defendant was identified from the footage and subsequently was brought before the court to face the consequences for her actions."
Valente pleaded guilty to damaging a motor vehicle, causing damage worth £1,078.83 (around $1,450) at Poole Magistrates' Court on December 9, the Daily Echo reported.
She was ordered to pay that amount in compensation, along with other costs, the outlet said.