Innovation helps police

12:30pm Thursday 24th April 2008

A COMPANY which started in the founder's garage is now supplying video recorders to all the UK's police forces.

Ovation Systems, of Milton Common, near Thame, won a Queen's Award for Innovation for its DVD recorder AfterBurner, which allows police to record evidence accepted in courts.

Ovation was founded 20 years ago by electronic engineer Richard Gregory in his garage in Great Milton.

He said: "My wife was working at the John Radcliffe and we decided to move nearer to Oxford from Newbury.

"I quit my job, had my first child, moved house and started a business all at the same time."

His electronic design consultancy grew slowly at first, but business really took off two years ago after police forces asked for a replacement for video cassettes, which were unreliable and very difficult to extract evidence from.

"The discs also need to be able to handle 24 hours worth of recording using time-lapse technology," said Mr Gregory.

"Initially we said it was too technically challenging, but we solved the problems.

"AfterBurner is now the standard video recorder for police forces in this country and they have moved away from tapes to DVD.

"The technology is quite advanced and challenging. It's also time critical - you don't want the bad guys to get away."

The business now has 20 staff and has moved from Mr Gregory's garage to modern premises nearby.

Mr Gregory recruited a former university friend, David Millar, to market Ovation's products to the security industry. Many involve encryption, preventing evidence from being intercepted by criminals.

Mr Gregory said: "AfterBurner is our biggest seller and it's still flying off the shelves. We are now looking at allowing videos to be seen remotely via the Internet."

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