The Client
A NSW Construction Boss Looking After His Team.
Marcus (not his real name) owned a construction and civil works company in Greater Sydney with 38 employees. He had built the business over eleven years and took genuine pride in looking after the people who worked for him. Proper safety protocols. Above-award wages. A culture where injuries were taken seriously.
So when a long-standing employee filed a workers compensation claim citing a lower-back injury that prevented any physical activity, Marcus's first response was sympathy. He knew the job. He knew injuries happened.
The Challenge
The Insurer Was Toothless.
Within a few weeks, something didn't add up. A colleague had reported seeing the claimant loading heavy materials at what appeared to be a competitor's worksite. Activity directly inconsistent with a claimed inability to lift more than two kilograms or stand for more than ten minutes.
Marcus reported his concerns to the insurer. He was told the claim was "under assessment." Three months passed. The weekly compensation payments had already totalled more than $18,000. The insurer's process was, in Marcus's own words, "completely toothless." Nobody seemed willing to take action without proof that the insurer wouldn't go and gather itself.
Marcus wasn't just frustrated about the cost. This was personal. He had built a business on the principle of looking after honest workers. Someone was exploiting that, and the system was letting it happen. What he needed was a workers comp fraud investigator who could deliver evidence the insurer couldn't shrug off.
The Investigation
Three Days of Focused Surveillance.
Stirling Investigations deployed a surveillance operative across three separate days over a two-week period. The surveillance covered the claimant's residential address, a sporting venue he was known to frequent, and a worksite where he had been observed by Marcus's contact.
During the third deployment, over a continuous four-hour period, our operative documented the claimant carrying heavy construction materials between a vehicle and an active worksite, climbing scaffolding on multiple occasions, and engaging in sustained physical labour. All directly contradicting his treating practitioner's medical reports.
Tribunal-ready evidence. Footage was captured via professional video with GPS-confirmed timestamps. A secondary social media investigation identified multiple recent posts, including one from two weeks prior showing the claimant at a gym performing exercises directly inconsistent with his claimed injury. The complete evidence package was compiled into a tribunal-ready report formatted to meet workers compensation dispute requirements.
Every step of the WorkCover surveillance was conducted in public locations and under Australian law. No laws were broken and no private property was accessed.
