Private Investigator

erica1983

Folks, has anyone used a PI before to obtain data/photos etc and if so does it hold up in court ?

biko

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Pat Mustard

erica1983 wrote: »

Folks, has anyone used a PI before to obtain data/photos etc and if so does it hold up in court ?

If a personal injury plaintiff claims to have a restricted range of movement in his arms, arising out of claimed injuries, and if a defendant's PI photographs him playing golf, teeing off with an apparently unrestricted range of movement in his arms, one would think that this should be relevant and one would think that such photographs should be admissible in a personal injuries action, in the ordinary course of events.

Insurance companies use PIs all the time, especially where they think that somebody is exaggerating injuries or worse.

Peregrinus

Ordinary rules of evidence apply. You'll need to "prove" the photographs - i.e. the photographer gives evidence in person about when and where he took them, etc. If the photograph was taken illegally then it may be excluded, since illegally-obtained evidence is generally not admissible in Irish courts.

Same goes for data. You need to prove the validity of the data - if you simply hand in a printout or a thumbdrive with documents how do I know it's not something you cooked up yourself? - and it if is genuine data but illegally obtained it is likely to be excluded.

erica1983

Peregrinus wrote: »

Ordinary rules of evidence apply. You'll need to "prove" the photographs - i.e. the photographer gives evidence in person about when and where he took them, etc. If the photograph was taken illegally then it may be excluded, since illegally-obtained evidence is generally not admissible in Irish courts.

Same goes for data. You need to prove the validity of the data - if you simply hand in a printout or a thumbdrive with documents how do I know it's not something you cooked up yourself? - and it if is genuine data but illegally obtained it is likely to be excluded.

If the evidence is to prove a person is Working when claiming that they aren't. Would a PI investigation report satisfy a judge with regards to maintenance?

Avada

If it's maintenance then I would imagine a solicitor is already involved, it's worth getting proper legal advice off them regarding it.

If they are working for cash, it may also be worth reporting to Departmeng of Social Protection as they have inspectors who can and do investigate possible cases of Welfare fraud as well.

amen

Re the illegally obtained evidence was there not a recent ruling that if evidence was illegally obtained due to say a mistake on a search warrant and the Garda did not know about the mistake then the evidence was ok?

If so could you make the same argument re say a photo obtained illegally if you were not aware it was obtained illegally ?

erica1983

No Solicitor involed, i can not afford one, even the legel aid board solicitors are expensive. It's a catch 22, maintenance cut off but you could do with the help of a solicitor (at a price) to help out in court. Not sure to pay my money towards solicitor or PI for report for judge.

Peregrinus

amen wrote: »

Re the illegally obtained evidence was there not a recent ruling that if evidence was illegally obtained due to say a mistake on a search warrant and the Garda did not know about the mistake then the evidence was ok?

If so could you make the same argument re say a photo obtained illegally if you were not aware it was obtained illegally ?

This is a bit fuzzy. The general rule is that unlawfully obtained evidence is not admissible, but there can be carve-outs depending on questions like - What was the nature of the illegality? How did it arise? What consequences did it have?

If I have to give a one-sentence answer, it's this: If the person who took the photograph knew of the circumstance which made taking it unlawful, then the photograph will not be admissible. He doesn't have to know that the circumstance made it unlawful; he just has to know of the circumstance.

So if the photographer climbs over the back wall, sneaks up to the kitchen window and takes a photograph through it, he knows that he has entered into private property without permission to take the photograph. He may or may not know how the rules of evidence operate; he may not realise that this puts the admissibility of the photograph in evidence in jeopardy. But it does, because he knows of the relevant facts.

Peregrinus

erica1983 wrote: »

If the evidence is to prove a person is Working when claiming that they aren't. Would a PI investigation report satisfy a judge with regards to maintenance?

Depends on what the PI report says, obviously.

If is says "we know this guy is working because, look, here's photographs of him doing housepainting jobs on three different properties in the past two weeks and, look, here's a photograph of a notice on a local supermarket noticeboard advertising the services of a housepainter and giving his mobile number" that's evidence that the guy is working and earning some kind of an income. But it gives us no clue as to what that income may be. So it will cast doubt on the credibility of his claim that he has no income but jobseeker's allowance, but it will still leave important questions (like "how much maintenance can he afford to pay?") unanswered.

Polecat1069

erica1983 wrote: »

No Solicitor involed, i can not afford one, even the legel aid board solicitors are expensive. It's a catch 22, maintenance cut off but you could do with the help of a solicitor (at a price) to help out in court. Not sure to pay my money towards solicitor or PI for report for judge.

Sounds like what your looking for is someone to carry out surveillance on a person, from what your saying, it sounds like an ex. Surveillance is not illegal in Ireland, providing the person undertaking the surveillance does not stray onto private property and does not 'engineer situations' so as to obtain evidence of a person doing something they normally wouldn't do in the course of their normal everyday activities. A professional surveillance operative will video a person as they go about their normal activities, this will be done covertly. The evidence they obtain through video/photos are admissible in court but I believe the rule of disclosure comes into play before hand. You need to contact a solicitor and a Private Investigator who carries out Covert Surveillance. Unfortunately neither are cheap.

Pdavis

Hi Erica.

I'm a PI who specialises in surveillance with three years under my belt. I might be able to answer some of your questions.

Surveillance is used to ascertain a persons daily routine. This helps to identify hobbies, frequented places, occupation/ working hours and level of mobility.

My clients are generally insurance companies or persons acting on their behalf. What usually happens is that the plaintiff will submit an affidavit to the court about previous and current circumstances. Sometimes people will exaggerate their claim or flat out lie and say they or not working. Surveillance can sometimes show otherwise.

In your case, surveillance may yield positive results, in which case if shown to a judge they may order the other party to submit more documentation such as P60, bank statements, asset report etc to access more accuratly what level of maintance they should pay.

Hope this helps.