CHALLENGES
SURVEILLANCE EVIDENCE
TO
Case Study (Dec 2017-2018)
Private investigations continues to be unregulated with literally hundreds of training providers selling courses in an unregulated area of the security industry. As a result, there are thousands of individuals who now believe they are competent, and some claim expert, surveillance operatives all vying for work within a network of individuals with similar ability. Don't be watched
The traits of a covert surveillance operative are specific, encompassing a number of skills not unusally found in everyone, including ex-military personnel. Clients, and provider companies are often let down due to disingenuous assertions of ability and experience which impacts on those genuine professional individuals who uphold the ethos of excellence.
In recent years there has been a spike in claimant challenges to surveillance which is no doubt a result of bad practises either taught or picked up from other weak links within the community. Individuals with self proclaimed "Expert" standing have decided to use their knowledge of unprofessional behaviour to prevent video evidence submitted by diligent professionals from being presented to the court.
As a professional provider, Profile Investigations have a duty to act in the best interests of our clients and advising clients on bad practices to which they may have been previously exposed is somewhat different than standing up in court to present such assertions as a self proclaimed expert which could actually introduce a considerably more negative than positive outcome for the claimant.
In 2017 we were instructed to conduct surveillance of a claimant relating to a high value catastrophic injury claim. We deployed on a total of six instructions, each of 2-3 days. On each occasion we acted in compliance with our professional standards policy reporting our finding to our client along with edited copies of footage taken, on DVD's.
In 2018, in accordance with court procedure, all video footage was disclosed to the claimant's legal representatives who registered objections to the footage and applied to the court to have the evidence dismissed. A self proclaimed "Expert" was hired by the claimant's team and we subsequently received a growing number of quite bizarre questions relating to our methods of operation. Having disclosed edited versions of footage, we were asked to provide an unedited version of all footage and subsequently all raw original footage on copy SD card media. No further questions were forthcoming after the surveillance "Expert" forensically examined our evidence. Attempts to prevent admissibility of our video evidence failed which led to a favourable, out of court, settlement for our client. Don't be watched