Investigations & evidence · dash cameras and bodycams
A dispute usually ends the moment the right half-minute is played. For that to happen the clip has to still be on the card, still open, and land on the right desk while it counts. We lift erased and broken footage off SD cards, and out of the memory inside a camera, then send it back in a form Humberside Police or an insurer can use.
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| What you see | What the fault is | What to try |
|---|---|---|
| Clips deleted off the card | Flash keeps the data until something new is written over it | Take the card out |
| You drove home with the camera still on | Each lap of the loop takes a bit more of what is left | Turn the camera off |
| The playback is a black screen | A write that stopped halfway, or a card past its best | Take that card out of service |
| Protected event files that will not open | A maker's own wrapper, readable by that camera | We unwrap them and convert |
| A bodycam smashed or soaked | The memory chip normally survives the case | The video is read off the chip itself |
| A solicitor or loss adjuster wants it formal | Originals, an MP4 that plays, hashes, bench notes | Included on every job |
Each item that arrives gets a case number the day it lands. An engineer looks at it and finds the real fault, and that costs you nothing. You are told in plain terms which files can come off the drive and which cannot. A price follows — one figure, written down. No work starts until you have seen it and agreed to it.
Nothing is opened, exported or changed on your media. The card, or the camera's internal memory, is imaged sector by sector, and every step after that runs on the image, including unlocking protected event files. Your card goes back as it arrived.
Deleted clips are carved out of the image. Damaged ones need their header and their index rebuilt before an ordinary player will touch them. Flash punishes you in one way only: keep using the card and there is less left to find.
Driving-offence video reaches Humberside Police by two routes: the national dash cam portal, or the force's own upload page. Send it within days, not weeks, because where a notice of intended prosecution is required, fourteen days is the whole of it. Insurers receive the bundle built on every CCTV job here: original files, an MP4 anyone can play, hash values, and a note on method.
You are not billed while you are still thinking. The list of what came off the drive goes to you first, and the invoice waits on your word. Files go home on media bought in for the job, with the postage back on us. We keep the job open until you have opened them on your own machine.
The one deadline that does not move: a range of road-traffic offences require the registered keeper to be served, inside 14 days, with a notice of intended prosecution. Most road-traffic offences then carry a six-month limit on prosecution. Forces set their own submission cut-offs earlier again, so read what Humberside Police asks for before you upload. Recovered on day twelve, it is still worth sending. Recovered on day twenty, usually not.
Deleting a clip is not the same as writing over it. The image off this cab camera settled which had happened. The clip the insurer asked for had gone in the night, so nothing was touched until a copy of the card existed. It was rebuilt from that copy, hashed, and the footage went back inside a week. The claim and the HR file both closed on it.
Usually, if it is relevant and can be shown to be genuine. Genuine rests on three things: the file in the state the camera left it, metadata untouched, and a written record of who held it and when. Weight is for the court, not us.
Two routes. The national dash cam safety portal sends your clip to whichever force covers the road it was filmed on, or you upload straight to Humberside Police. Both want the other vehicle's registration and a signed witness statement. Do it early: some offences need a notice of intended prosecution to reach the registered keeper within 14 days.
Rarely. A delete marks the space as free to reuse and leaves the picture data where it was. On an ordinary flash card the clip stays put until loop recording comes back round, or until your next few journeys write across it. Get the card out, keep the camera switched off, and it generally lasts.
Yes. Whatever a body-worn camera records of a person who can be identified counts as personal data, and that puts it under UK GDPR. There has to be a lawful basis, signage wherever it can sensibly go, a defensible retention period and secure storage. Evidence is handled as CCTV is: original held, copies hashed, hand-offs logged.
The clip you want is being written over while you read this, and the deadline has not shifted. Log a job. The first look costs nothing, and what you tell us stays private.