Is she still denying that she owns a phone? Is she refusing to provide the phone number so that her records could be checked? That would seem like hiding evidence to me.
I’d be less interested in knowing that she lied or misspoke at the scene, and more interested in knowing if she’s obstructing the search for facts now.
Are you completely sure that the photos show a cell phone plugged into the lighter, and not a GPS unit lying face down (which can look very similar, at least my phone and my gps look almost exactly alike when plugged into my car’s cigarette lighter). Or an ipod touch, which looks a lot like an iphone, too. Or any other sort of MP3 player or mini tablet or what have you. It must be a flip phone, I guess. Those are pretty distinctive looking and there aren’t any non phone things that look like them that I know of.
Fuckity fuck fuck. Fuck fuck, fuckity fuck fuck. Fucky fuck.
(translation: that’s a way better authority than I offered up).
being in possession of the phone does not equal ownership of the phone - if it were on the charger - it could have been ‘out of sight’ of the driver (having been put there by another occupant) and the driver may not have been using it.
Cell phone records are teh only way to prove
a) who’s phone it actually is
b) if it was in use at the time of the accident
eta - and the GPS usage as indicated by deegeea is another reason it may/may not have even been ‘a phone’ or in use ‘as a phone’ at the given time.