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Prying into Victoria’s private eyes

Under the cloak of night, James Craig navigates his vehicle along a quiet tree-lined street in Victoria and spots the residence he has been hired to observe.
Binocular 1
Binoculars

Under the cloak of night, James Craig navigates his vehicle along a quiet tree-lined street in Victoria and spots the residence he has been hired to observe.

The lights inside are on, and the subject’s vehicle is parked out front.

“I do a visual, a quick snapshot,” says Craig, who has been a private investigator for 25 years. “As I’m driving by, I’m also checking to see which surveillance positions would serve me best. I’ve got a lot of information already.”

He slips his vehicle into a curb-side parking spot that offers him a clear view of the front of the residence.

“If I’m going to tail the person, I’ll park further away,” says Craig, who revels in the challenge of unobtrusively following a target in traffic.

“When you’re tailing someone, your heart is just pounding a mile a minute.”

Craig, the owner and sole investigator of his Victoria-based James Craig Investigations business, has been hired to watch the person who lives in the residence, noting their comings and goings and, possibly, any erratic behaviour.

“Most people would never know they’re being observed or tailed, unless they’re involved in criminal activity,” he says. “But there are a lot of people who are paranoid, especially people involved in infidelity because they’re cheating and lying.”

Twenty per cent of Craig’s clients — most of them women — hire him to investigate suspected infidelities.

“I take infidelity jobs very seriously,” he says. “It’s probably one of the most tragic things that can happen in a person’s life.”

Some private eyes are former police officers, but Craig was a family support worker, investigating child abuse and neglect until he decided to leave the stressful job behind and become a PI.

“Drop me off and let me pretend to be someone else and I’m in heaven,” he says.

Craig whips his binoculars to his eyes for a closer look at a woman emerging from the target residence. She quickly walks down the street and disappears into the darkness.

“Someone once described it as hours and hours of pure boredom mixed in with seconds of pure panic,” says Bill Hayman, private investigator and owner of Victoria-based Sterling Pacific Investigations.

“There’s nothing glamorous about what I do,” he says. “It’s like any job that involves helping others.”

His specialty is insurance cases, collecting information about people who are seeking monetary compensation through a lawsuit or an insurance claim for injuries that may be exaggerated.

“When it comes to an insurance claim and I’m paying a premium, then I feel I have a vested interest that the person collecting on their claim is legitimate,” Hayman says. “I’m not out to get anybody. There’s definitely a need for what we do.”

Hayman had up to 11 employees working for him about 10 years ago, but now he’s down to two, including an accountant.

Insurance companies have become more frugal over the years, but downsizing has its advantages, Hayman says.

“When you’re managing people, it takes up all your time,” he says. “I find people fascinating. I’ve done it for 26 years because it’s interesting.”

For Craig, there have been times when shadowing a target doesn’t provide enough information. He enjoys inventing plausible reasons for visiting a residence to find out what his target is doing. He has caught adulterers and cleared the names of some suspect spouses this way.

“I’ve resolved a lot of problems for people over the years,” says Craig. “It feels good to find closure on something.

“The clients hire me because they want to know the truth.”

emccracken@vicnews.com

By the numbers:

There were 248 private investigation companies licensed in B.C. in 2004 and 2008, the highest recorded numbers in the past eight years. Today, there are 233 firms.

In 2009, there were 564 licensed individuals in the province, compared to 704 today. Last year 535 investigators were working toward their full licence in B.C., whereas there are 773 today.

Licensed private investigators in Victoria: 33

Private investigators in Victoria working toward full licence: 32