Not always bad news

Infidelity is often a hard fact to discover, but it is not always bad news.

Even when a clients' suspicions run high, and they turn to us for advice, with all the normal tell-tail signs, you can get it wrong...

This was the result of a lovely outcome on a case this week.

The client had all the "normal" warning signs, and we had to agree, something did not add up, except the obvious.

Unfortunately the client having been in this position in their previous relationship, read all the signs wrong.

On our advice, they took the drastic step of setting the scene, so to speak, several weeks ago.

The client went away for the weekend, leaving their partner to their own devices, with no possible chance of them returning early. So all the opportunity to be unfaithful was there. With our agent in readiness waiting for any callers to the home or to conduct surveillance, if the subject left the house.

In addition to this, the client was able to place a listening device within their family property and monitoring equipment on their family computer, together with a tracker on their family vehicle.

This was a great deal of effort, and in certain aspects slightly overkill for the situation, but .. needs must.

To the delight of the client, the outcome of the enquiry was - nothing to report. Which actually is never the case, there is always something to report, even if just the postman arrived at 08.15 hours ! just nothing of a suspicious or damming nature.

The subject left the house once over the weekend to visit the shopping centre, where they visited two shops, only speaking with 2 passers by and an assistant whilst they were out.

No mobile telephone calls were made or received, whilst the subject was out.

The only visitors to the property, who was later identified as a long standing friend of the the client, with their partner, and the conversation was as would have been expected.

The only other conversation to be heard within the property was the radio the television or the subject discussing regular issues with another friend.

The computer was only used for searching for expensive holidays.

So the client returned home happy and relaxed about things, and now the element of doubt has been satisfied, the relationship has taken a turn for the better.

So in this case knowing the facts has allayed all suspicions.

Not always good news though

It is a sad fact of life that some people cheat.

This is usually devastating news, so when this ends a marriage of some 30 years, it can be even more difficult. What has been even more devastating for our client to come to terms with is when the subject of enquiry is deceased.

Who's truth should you believe....

The client's life is already shattered by the loss of their partner, and then to discover that all was not as Rosy in the garden as one had assumed.

So who's truth do they believe. The 1st wife, the mistress, the silent business partner, the family they never knew about ???

The only truth to believe is the facts... The cruel hard facts. In our advice to the client, this must be the only way they can move forward. The what ifs, the whys, the maybes all those questions that they have, that will never be answered by the only person that could.

This is a case that has been on-going now for several months and will be on-going for many more to come, as each piece of information is obtained and delicately relayed to the client. and the client's and subject's adult child.

The case for Insight started as a rumour told to the client that the subject had family that were unknown to the client. - Yes fact - Proven.

The next line of enquiry was to establish a previous marriage. - Yes fact - Proven.

The next line of enquiry was to search for any other children, outside the clients marriage. Yes fact - Proven.

Not wanting to believe hard facts in ink, the client asked us to obtain a photograph of the deceased, from their army career, just in case it was a case of mistaken identity.

Showing the faded picture, now some 40 years old, to the client, there was no doubt in the client's mind that it was the subject in question.

Our line of enquiry has now taken us down the route of the siblings of the 1st marriage.

How far the client and their' Daughter wish to proceed along this route , we shall have to wait and see.

Their journey is not over yet, let us just hope Insight can bring some good news to then along the way.

At least if they were alive, the client could have the pleasure of dealing with matters as they though best, this will never be the case here. No matter what truth comes forward, good or bad, going back over many many years, it will just have to be taken in.

Romance is still alive

Another success here at Insight.

Not being an actual working investigator, you get to see all manner of cases, and the one highlighted to me yesterday was a good one. My colleague is not a "blogger", so I will relay this for her.

Several months ago a middle aged client called us, wishing to trace his girlfriend from over 30 years ago.

The story goes...

They were young, inexperienced, and parents intervened, as they do.

Many years down the line, after a marriage and several relationships later, the client knew why things with others would just not work. He was still in love with his childhood sweetheart.

So, the client contacted Insight and employed us to trace the lady, with just a maiden name and a 30yr old address !!

Tall order - yes - result - traced !!

The news we had this week, was that the client had now made a visit overseas to see the lady, and surprisingly enough her life story so far, read very similar to the client's !!

We wish them every luck and future happiness. Good job done.

Camera update

The cold reality ...........

of this job is sometimes very disturbing even if eventually good is done.

The results of the covert camera assignment came through today for the client who was concerned about her children.

What a horrible world it can be !! Poor woman. At least she now has the evidence she requires and the offender is already in custody.

Hard hitting as it is placing covert cameras within a clients property if you look at the up side if there can be one in such circumstances, clients suspicions have been confirmed and damage has stopped!!

The legalities of such an assignment can always be an absolute mine field. Suffice to say the Police liaison officer that deals with such matters everyday of the week, has praised our agent for the manner in which the investigation was handled.

I am just glad that we have investigators on board that have realistic but sensitive natures and are able to deal with matters appropriately.

No doubt this will eventually lead to a court case, and in the modern day, technicolour evidence is hard to dispute.




　

Law Exibition

Today I have agreed to let three members of the Insight Birmingham Team attend the WAPI stand at the forthcoming Law Exhibition at the NEC Birmingham, on October 14th and 15th 2009. They tell me it is all good for P.R. !!

Difficult decision

The question of Female agents reared it's head again in the Operations/Process Serving Department today. I am against it, always have been. It is a debate that will continue to rumble in my humble opinion, and this is written by a female, who has been in the industry for 30 years !! Why should a female be in a position of danger and why should I agree to put here there. I suppose you could say it is sexist and somebody will wrap my knuckles for it, but to resolve the situation, I sent a male and a female agent. Thereby keeping everyone happy, especially the client.

Dangerous Job !!

Sometimes.........

we can all get a little bit too blas^e about the amount of skill required to avoid the pitfalls of certain aspects of this job.

A most stressful day one way or another, this afternoon with our assistance on new website for WAPI, http://wapi.com/ but largely due to dealing with the events of yesterday afternoon.

You find yourself having a lazy late lunch with the family and then all hell breaks loose.

One of our most experienced Process Servers was run down by the person he was trying to serve with Divorce Papers.

The upshot of this is, our agent has now been released from hospital, the person he was trying to serve sits in a police cell, with the possibility of a charge of Attempted Murder - apparently a motor vehicle is classed as a weapon !!

In 30 years, I have never known the like of it !!

What a busy week

As you get older you think it gets easier, I don't think so.

This is the first available time this week that I have had to update.

On reflection though, a good chunk of the week was taken out attending a conference in Brighton for the Association that I am a Governing Council Member of, The World Association of Professional Investigators - W.A.P.I. http://wapi.com/ .

All the fun of the Fair

I must admit to loving the buzz of exhibiting at a large venue, with many varied trades and being away from the every day though.

You would think being at a conference that is in a growth period during a recession, was a good thing ? The sad part was that the subject matter was credit information bought by major organisations to facilitate decisions on debt collection, counselling and credit facilities. How the few will effect the many !!

Internet Dating

The reality of hiding behind a screen

Another sad item from the week, and witness to how the world has become - Internet dating. Well it wasn't even dating. A overseas potential client came to us searching for a friend they had meet on the Internet. Corresponding for over 8 years, web cam daily. Then 3 weeks ago, after revealing the fact that they had purchased a house for them to be together and the suggestion that after 8 years they should meet. The email went dead !! Being distraught, a hastily bought ticket to fly over here was arranged, a taxi was hired to drive around the area with a picture looking for the lost friend. Many days later and thousands of pounds out of pocket, a sad flight home..... If only the potential client would have listened to our Tracing Department, with the limited information they had, we were able to prove no such person existed.

Vanity - Is it worth the risk

The right expertise for the job

An interesting subject matter we are currently working on, you could say comes under the heading - Beauty Enhancement - when is it medical, and when is it necessary for qualified doctors to carry out procedures that are currently being conducted in beauty salons, all in the name of looking better. Cant wait for the time the operations' team need a slightly older woman as a guineapig !

It never really changes

Whilst out on a totally unrelated matter with one of our Senior Investigators, that Investigator "urge" popped up, to fit in a job whilst out and about. Regardless that I wa s in tow so to speak.

You cant beat that good old fashioned leg work sometimes, so having to agree, I went along with the plan !!

Not having had much success with the initial attempt to discover information at a location, still with me in tow, the investigator decided to give it another go, this time armed with camera.

Whilst I sat in the car cringing that something would go wrong, hiding my head in the local paper, facing the reality of why I never wanted to be a field agent, the investigator returned to the car, smiles all around.

The fact that a dodgy company was trading from the address, that we were looking at for another unrelated dodgy company, once armed with camera and taking legitimate pictures of the area, whilst unhelpful the 1st time around, said occupants were most helpful !! Talk about the survival of the fittest.

And finally...

That modern age phenomena - Technology !!

This is one of those weeks when I was glad to be out of the firing line. Covert trackers to be precise. When it works, absolutely great, nothing like it, for getting a head start on a surveillance.
However, when suppliers decide mid-job to change transmission platforms, tempers become fraught, with operations spending many hours into the night to recover situations.

So, it's a Sunday, take a chill day, fresh again for the week ahead.

Investigator on You-tube

Real Iife Events Mirrored in TV Series.

Yes these events really happened . Adapted for the BBC's Nice Guy Eddy series, in 2002. Real life investigation stories that happened to one of our senior investigators. Who was also the screen consultant on the series.

Process Serving Increase

I have recently found that the amount of process serving we undertake has risen since the dreaded "Credit Crunch". This is always un-happy news for someone, but it does increase our workload, and makes you realise how bad things are. We have recently been instructed to serve injunctions upon various tenants in properties. There have been approximately 30 served over the past two weeks. They are only served when the tenant has not allowed contractors to attend their property to check the gas appliances and central heating in the property. This confuses me as to why they would not want these things checked, are people so worried they wont even let engineers in to check for safety.

I've just received another 10 this morning, so better get them served.

EMMA - Process Serving Department - Insight Investigations

New Day

A brand new day facing brand new problems. Client on first thing wanting to know how her surveillance went last night. Answer ...It didnt. The target stayed home all night alone when he was expected to visit his mistress whilst client working away from home overnight. A visit to mistresses property showed a male visitor !!
Certainly not target, so this opens up a whole new scenario. Target has 'invested' a considerable amount of family cash in mistresses retail clothing business (apparently with 'sole' access) so we are now left with exploring the scenario in further depth to see just what is happening to the money, or does the mistress have 'other' sources of income.........

Slow Day

Toady was a slow day. So this has given time to make the arrangements for the trip to finalise the details for the new state of the art / cutting edge surveillance equipment we are having built in Asia. It has also given time to look at the possibilities of the trip to The World Investigator's Convention in Dallas next year. Both of which are quite exciting. It is always good to see how things are done in other countries outside the UK, even if their laws are different to ours the facilities available to investigators outside the UK, for use in the UK are vast. I will have to skip the trip to Asia and leave this, to one of the more technically mined in the company, but I wont be missing Dallas !!

Good Guys

Happy Endings


Today has turned out to be one of those days, when you can say, yes - occasionally we are "The Good Guys". A client, who is in the music industry, was looking for his teenage Daughter who attended at Private School, she went missing on Thursday, after running away from school. As a result of good old fashioned "PD" work, (now Americanised to "PI" work), social networking, and some very clever analytical skills of a 30yr in the profession, Investigator, Father and Daughter we reunited in a park late this afternoon. Being the only female on duty today, I was asked to accompany the investigator to assist in the re-union. I don't speak the clients native language but even I could see the joy on both Father & Daughter's faces when re-united, after a few tears. The irony of this story is that the investigator in question , several years ago was an assistant writer for the TV series "Nice Guy Eddie", that mirrored some of his cases in the North of England. So one of those days today, when you can say yes, occasionally we are "Good Guys", and "Nice Guys". Whilst all this has been going on today, I have been able to set up and arrange for the installation of covert cameras, for another client who is worried about activities in her house whilst she is at work. Let's hope tomorrow is as successful as today, and we can allay any fears or discover the truth for a very worried mother.

Never a dull day.

Being a female in this industry has never been easy. Until recently I thought, and then technology takes over. Never having been heavily involved on the operational side of the business, for the past 30 years, my talents have been stretched today. Being two of the team down on the Midlands team, I have learnt to download/stream videos. Monitor live vehicle tracking from a new Internet platform, deploy a covert vehicle tracker in broad daylight, and prepare an Affidavit from a surveillance log for a court case on Monday. That was in-between analysing the month end data, meeting with our web people and dealing with the general running of the non-operational side of things.

There was a bonus to the day though, our photographs were in print again, last month it was Lancashire Life, this month it was the ABI quarterly magazine. Who knows, maybe I will start to think about writing that book everyone keeps on about !?

Being a 24 hour service, I have a share in phone duty this weekend, so who knows I maybe stretched even further over the next couple of days.