Accident/Incident definitions
UK Emergency Services do not differentiate in their description of an eventuality they attend in the way ICAO and other aviation bodies do with regards to what happens to aircraft.
Events ranging from a minor road collision, through a bank robbery, a major fire to terrorism are routinely described by the UK emergency services as "incidents" in everything from traffic reports to press releases generated by such happenings.
Thus Telster is using the correct UK jargon in his post.
Thanks. I realise this is an aviation forum but I wasn't trying to use a aviation specific term. Think this is probably far enough away from the main topic of the thread now!