Surveillance TV a fiasco, says top cop

Britain's network of security cameras has been "an utter fiasco", failing to cut crime despite billions of pounds being spent on it, a senior detective was quoted as saying yesterday.

Britain has the most surveillance in the world, according to civil liberty groups and security experts, with an estimated 4.2 million closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras in place on buildings, shops, roads and train stations.

But the Guardian newspaper reported Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville of London police as saying that only 3 percent of the capital's street robberies were solved using CCTV footage and criminals were not afraid of being caught on camera.