GSA Global provides investigation and evidence-development support for matters being assessed or pursued as private prosecutions, working alongside and under the direction of solicitors and counsel.
Legal advisers may require additional investigation to establish facts, identify witnesses, fill evidential gaps, develop chronologies or undertake corporate and open-source enquiries. Equally, an organisation that believes serious wrongdoing has occurred may need the underlying evidence organised and developed before its legal advisers can properly assess whether a private prosecution is an appropriate route.
GSA provides the investigative component of that process, gathering, assessing and documenting evidence in coordination with the legal team. We do not act as prosecutor, provide legal advice or determine whether proceedings should be commenced; our role is to give solicitors and counsel a clearer and properly documented evidential picture on which to advise their client.
Working Alongside Solicitors and Counsel
The division of roles is clear. The solicitors and counsel advise on the law, assess evidential sufficiency, make the decisions about commencing and conducting proceedings, and own disclosure strategy. GSA conducts the enquiries the legal team directs, reports findings — helpful and unhelpful alike — and maintains the investigative records the legal team’s obligations depend on. Unhelpful material is recorded and reported with the same care as supportive material.
OSINT and Corporate Intelligence
Ellen Davies, our Lead Open-Source Investigator, supports prosecution casework with corporate intelligence on defendants and connected entities, identification of assets and interests from lawful public sources, network analysis and evidentially captured open-source material. Asset-related findings can inform the legal team’s parallel civil-recovery or restraint strategy; we identify what lawful sources reveal, and we do not guarantee that assets will be found or recovered.
Witness Enquiries
Witness evidence in a prosecution context requires particular care: accounts can be affected by leading questions, by exposure to other accounts, or by any suggestion of inducement. Witness enquiries are coordinated with the legal team, planned to avoid those risks, and documented: who was approached, when, by whom and what was said. Where the legal team prefers to take statements itself, we can locate witnesses, make initial contact and hand over cleanly.
Investigation Records and Deliverables
Because the investigation itself may be examined in contested proceedings, the record of the investigation is a deliverable in its own right. Legal teams receive: the agreed terms of engagement; the investigation plan and its revisions; enquiry logs recording investigative actions and results; records of witness interactions; chronologies; evidence schedules identifying each item and its source; investigation reports written for the legal team’s use; and stated limitations. Disclosure decisions are for the legal team; our job is a record complete enough to support them.
Our Private Prosecution Investigation Team
David Wood provides senior oversight, drawing on 31 years of Metropolitan Police service including command of organised-crime and anti-corruption investigations and six years helping build Northern Ireland’s independent police-accountability investigations. Bob Quick QPM provides senior direction on matters involving corruption, serious wrongdoing or prominent parties. Ellen Davies leads the open-source and corporate-intelligence elements. Where the evidence includes compromised accounts or systems, GSA can draw on its cyber-security capability, with Mark Raeburn providing strategic direction, Anthony Dickinson overseeing the technical work, and appropriately appointed digital-forensic specialists coordinated where formal forensic acquisition is required for evidential purposes.
Our Private Prosecution Investigation Support Capabilities
