In two very different stories, it’s been revealed that private investigators and private detectives are being used to help solve major cases.
In the UK, the Thames Valley Police is ‘replacing’ detectives working on sex crimes with investigators hired from a private company. While this might look dubious at first glance, it is actually a very smart move. All the private investigators who are being hired in have a background with the police and will be focusing their attention on specific areas where they have substantial experience.
For those experiencing a sexual attack, one of the most difficult aspects of reporting their crime can be the processing of their complaint by overworked and often under-resourced police officers. For them, a dedicated task force of well-trained and experienced professional investigators would come as a welcome surprise. With expert skills in statement taking and interviewing suspects, such private detectives are much more likely to achieve swift results than generalist officers who have to balance competing demands for their time. Of course we’re all familiar with this kind of scenario from the TV series New Tricks, but while that’s fiction, www.privatedetective.co.uk has experience of helping the police reopen or resolve outstanding cases.
British businessmen found innocent with help of private investigator
Richard Alden was spending time at his Nairobi holiday home when he found himself being charged with murder. Prosecutors kept him in gaol for several months, claiming he had murdered a young woman, Grace Wangechi Kinyajui. While the Kenyan detectives were perfectly content to view Richard as the culprit, he was smart enough to hire a UK private detective with forensic firearms expertise who was able to examine the scene and recreate the shooting.
The private detective’s painstaking reconstruction of the scenario revealed that Ms Kinyanjui had been playing around with the gun in front of a mirror when the firearm went off. The bullet hit the floor and rebounded, fatally wounding the young woman. While the pistol was normally kept unloaded, a recent spate of night-time intruders meant that Mr Alden had left one bullet in the chamber to warn off any criminals.
In these tragic situations it’s often the foreigner or outsider who is automatically put in the position of responsibility and without the input of an experienced private detective Mr Alden might even have been found guilty and given a substantial sentence in one of Africa’s most notorious prisons.