Our Newcastle-based client was concerned about one of their staff who had been off for 5 months with an injury they’d claimed they sustained at work. The staff member (let’s call him ‘Bob’) was in the process of taking legal action against their employer and claimed that they could no longer walk around without sticks for support.

‘Bob’ was receiving full sick pay from our client and the client in turn was also being fully cooperative with all litigation they were having levied against them… but rumours had started to circulate that there was nothing wrong with ‘Bob’ and he was really working in another job, “cash in hand”, over in Team Valley, Gateshead.

We met for a free consultation with our client and ascertained that there was reasonable grounds for suspicion that they were being defrauded of money by ‘Bob’ and that there was actually nothing wrong with him. It was important for us to ascertain ‘reasonable grounds’ that fraud was being carried out and that our client was being affected by this because as we have laid out in a previous blog post, we are highly ethical in ensuring that we’re not just investigating “long term sickness” because the employer “wants shot of them”.

We went out and completed initial surveillance at the location of the “new job” and confirmed ‘Bob’ did indeed enter and leave this building – and not using the crutches he claimed he couldn’t live without now either! This didn’t give us the confirmation we wanted that he actually worked there though.

… So we went back the next day wearing a covert body camera and carrying a HUGE bunch of flowers and asked at reception for ‘Bob’. The receptionist rang through to the depot out the back and sure enough up the stairs bounded our friend ‘Bob’, without any crutches or means of support. Once at the top of the stairs he came running over to us wearing a company ID badge around his neck on a lanyard.

“Who is sending me flowers?” he asked, completely bewildered. “The lads’ out the back are going to rip me to shreds. Does it have a card?”

We shrugged and said “We’re just the messenger. I think it does. Good luck with your work mates though!”

‘Bob’ laughed. “Cheers,” he said. “I’m only new as well so they’re going to have my life!”

And with that we got a lovely close up shot of his work ID badge to go along with his admission that he was a staff member there.

We sent our footage and accompanying report back to a very happy client who immediately began proceedings against the individual.

If you have concerns about one of your employees, whether it be in terms of a fraudulent injury/sickness claim made against you or whether their professional work ethic is threatening your business’ reputation, contact us today at enquiries@surmount-investigations.co.uk to see how we can help.