Investigations & evidence · in-vehicle and body-worn video
Most disputes end the moment a clip is played, so long as the file opens and reaches the right desk while there is still time to act on it. We recover deleted and damaged recordings from SD cards and from a camera's internal memory, then release them in a shape a claims handler, or Thames Valley Police, can work from.
Go through it with an engineer
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| The symptom | The likely cause | Start here |
|---|---|---|
| Clips deleted from the card | Plain flash memory — the data survives until a later write lands on it | Remove the card now |
| The camera kept running to the end of the journey | Each new lap of the loop writes closer over it | Switch the camera off |
| It plays, but there is no picture | A truncated write, or a card near its end: often fixable | Put that card aside for good |
| Event-locked clips stuck inside the camera | A maker's own container the unit refuses to give up | We unpick and convert them |
| A bodycam broken or waterlogged | The flash chip usually outlives the casing | We read the chip directly for the video |
| An insurer or a court wants it formally | Originals, an MP4, hashes, a method note | Standard on every case |
Nothing becomes chargeable until you have said yes to it. Each item takes a case number of its own the moment it arrives, an engineer establishes what has actually failed, and you are given a candid view of which files stand a realistic chance of returning. The single quote that follows is fixed, written down, and costs nothing.
No file is touched until the card, or the camera's own memory, has been imaged in full; protected clips are then unlocked on that image. What you posted goes back exactly as it arrived.
Deleted recordings are carved from the image, and damaged ones have their headers and index tables rebuilt until a player accepts them. The card is plain flash, so retiring it early is what preserves your odds.
Video of a driving offence goes to Thames Valley Police, by way of the national portal or on the force's own upload form, and it has to travel within days, since the fourteen-day notice rule allows no slack. Insurance work leaves packaged as any CCTV case would be: the original files, a playable MP4, hash values, a method note.
Nothing is billed until you have seen the recovered file list in full and told us to go ahead. What comes back arrives on new media, with the return journey at our cost, and the case stays open at this end until you have opened every file yourself.
One deadline sits above the rest: for most road-traffic offences a notice of intended prosecution has to be served on the registered keeper inside 14 days. That is why forces want footage from road users inside days, not weeks, and why each publishes a cut-off of its own — check the current Thames Valley Police figure before uploading. Recovered on the twelfth day, a clip is still worth submitting; recovered on the twentieth, it rarely is.
Overnight, the clip an insurer needed disappeared from a cab camera. The card was imaged first, and the image showed a deletion rather than an overwrite — which is the whole difference. Repaired and hashed, the footage went back within the week, and it answered the insurer and the HR file at once.
Generally it does, provided it is relevant and demonstrably genuine. Genuineness comes from the original file, its metadata unaltered, and a record showing who has held it since.
Use the national dashcam portal, which passes submissions to Thames Valley Police, or upload on the force's own page. Have the offending vehicle's registration, expect to sign a statement, and move quickly: for most offences the keeper must receive a notice of intended prosecution inside a fortnight.
Often it can. The card is ordinary flash, so a deleted recording sits where it was written until the loop or a later journey overwrites it. Pull the card, keep the unit powered down, and what is there generally stays recoverable.
They record personal data, which brings UK GDPR into play: a lawful basis, signage wherever that is workable, a defensible retention period, secure storage. For evidence, handle the clips as CCTV — originals retained, copies hashed, handling logged.
Loop recording is already writing over what you need, and the deadline will not move. Open a case today: the diagnosis costs nothing and stays confidential.