Do you need to prove that someone is guilty of wrongdoing or criminal activity? Whether you need proof that your marital partner has been having an affair so you can commence divorce proceedings or that an employee has been misappropriating company funds so you can bring criminal charges, you’re going to need hard evidence. Proving that someone has committed a criminal act or done something ethically wrong is all about finding and collecting enough evidence to remove any doubt that wrongdoing has taken place. A private detective can do more than confirm your suspicions: they help you acquire this evidence. But what types of evidence can our private investigators help you obtain and how valuable is each type of evidence?

1. Photographic and video evidence

Perhaps the most useful types of evidence that a private investigator can gather are photographs and videos. A private investigator may be able to catch someone red-handed committing a criminal or unethical act and take a photograph or video recording that shows what they are doing unambiguously. In cases like these, the videos and photographs can often constitute proof of wrongdoing, even without other types of supporting evidence.

2. Witness statements

Questioning people who have witnessed an act of wrongdoing and taking statements from them is part of a private investigator’s stock-in-trade. Of course, no individual witness is 100% reliable. However, if multiple witness agree on what they saw (or if a witness’s statement is supported by other kinds of evidence), witness testimony can make the difference between proving something and not proving it. In cases involving large numbers of witnesses, witness statements alone can constitute proof.

3. Digital evidence

Everyone leaves a trail when they interact with the internet or other digital systems. Private investigators can examine this trail and use it as evidence. The usefulness of digital evidence depends on the nature of the crime or unethical act that has been committed. If the wrongdoing was carried out entirely online, then digital evidence may be sufficient to prove the miscreant’s guilt on its own. However, if the act of wrongdoing took place in the real, physical world, digital evidence probably won’t constitute proof on its own. However, it can still point our investigators in the right direction and be used to infer the nature of the real-world wrongdoing. It can also be used to support other types of evidence.

4. Tracking results

Our private detectives occasionally plant trackers in an individual’s car so we can create a record of their movements. Merely being able to see where someone has been doesn’t normally prove anything, but it can help private investigators look for other types of evidence in the right places. What’s more, the record of where someone has been can be used as supporting evidence.

5. Physical evidence

Physical evidence is invaluable to private detectives because it can place a suspect in a particular location at a particular time or proves that a particular activity took place.

Whatever type of wrongdoing you need to prove, you’ll need evidence. Our private detectives can get it.