Investigations & evidence · dashcams and body-worn cameras
Card out, camera off. That is your whole job, and it decides everything after it. Most of these disputes finish the moment thirty seconds of the right footage goes up on a screen — which needs the clip to exist still, to open, and to arrive somewhere useful while it counts for something. We take erased and damaged video off SD cards and off memory soldered into the camera body, then send it back in a shape Thames Valley Police or an insurer can act on. £400 + VAT, nothing for the look, and on most jobs no fee if nothing is recovered. A good deal of the work is commercial vehicles: vans running out of the distribution yards at Theale, the haulage depots over at Colthrop.
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| What you are seeing | What is likely wrong | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| Clips erased off the card | Flash keeps what was written until something replaces it | Slide the card out |
| The camera ran all the way home | Every circuit of the loop takes a little more | Power down the camera |
| Playback gives a black screen | An interrupted write, or a card that has worn out | Leave that card unused |
| Protected event files no player opens | Wrapped in a proprietary format only that model will open | We unwrap and convert them |
| A broken or water-damaged bodycam | The memory chip usually outlasts the housing around it | The video comes off the chip itself |
| A solicitor or loss adjuster wants it formally | Originals, a playable MP4, hash values and bench notes | Done on every job we take |
A case number goes on your device the day it reaches us, and an engineer then finds the real fault — free, and before anything else happens. You are told plainly what will come back and what will not, with one fixed figure in writing beside it. Nothing chargeable starts until you have read that and said yes.
Nothing of yours gets opened, exported or altered at any stage. Your card, or the camera's own internal memory, is copied sector for sector, and all subsequent work happens on that image, protected event files included. What you sent comes back in the state it arrived.
Deleted clips are carved back from the image. Damaged ones want a fresh header and index built for them before any normal player will touch them. Flash has one hard rule: every further mile driven on that card leaves less to find.
Driving-offence video reaches Thames Valley Police through the force's own online reporting page, and the force wants it within seven days of the incident. Do it in days rather than weeks: fourteen is all there is where a notice of intended prosecution has to go out. What an insurer receives is what every CCTV job here produces — originals, an MP4 anyone can open, hashes, and a written method.
You see the file list first, then decide. Nothing is invoiced until you have said yes, and on most jobs there is no fee at all if the data does not come back. What we pull off goes onto media bought in for your job, and the postage home is ours. The case stays open on the bench until you tell us the files open on your own machine.
The one deadline that will not move: fourteen days. On a range of road-traffic offences that is the whole window, and what has to land inside it is a notice of intended prosecution, addressed to the keeper of the vehicle. Behind it sits a six-month limit on bringing most road-traffic prosecutions. Individual forces then impose submission cut-offs of their own, earlier still, so check what Thames Valley Police want before uploading anything. Sending on day twelve is worth doing; day twenty rarely is.
A copy came first; nothing touched the card itself, and every step after that ran on the image. The clip the insurer wanted had gone overnight — the picture data under it had not. It was rebuilt from the copy, hashed, exported, and with the insurer inside the week. Deleting is not overwriting, and the card settled which of the two had happened.
Usually, provided it bears on an issue in the case and you can show it is authentic. Three things do that work: the original file exactly as the camera laid it down, metadata that nobody has touched, and a documented chain naming everyone who has had it since. What weight the court then gives it is the court's business.
Through Thames Valley Police's own online reporting page, within seven days of the incident. The force wants a witness statement you have signed, plus the registration of the other vehicle. Speed matters, because a notice of intended prosecution — fourteen days, no extensions — is what certain offences require the keeper to be sent.
Rarely. A delete marks the space free and the picture data sits untouched where it always was. On an everyday flash card the clip stays there until the loop returns to the same spot, or until a few more journeys land on top of it. Card out, camera off, and it is generally still recoverable.
It does. Anything a body-worn camera records in which somebody is identifiable counts as personal data. Four requirements follow from that: a lawful basis for recording, signage wherever signage is practical, storage you keep under control, and a retention period you could justify if asked. The evidence itself follows the CCTV pattern — keep the original, hash the copies, write down each hand-over.
The recorder is still writing, and each time it comes round it takes more of what you need. Pull its power now, then get it to us. The first look costs nothing, a fixed figure follows in writing, and nothing you tell us goes anywhere else.