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.

"CCTV was originally seen as a preventative measure," said Neville, head of the Metropolitan police's division on visual images, identifications and detections.

"Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court," he said, according to the Guardian.

"It's been an utter fiasco."

Neville's comments echo a government report last October which said most CCTV footage was not of good enough quality to help police identify offenders and many cameras were focused on enforcing bus lanes as well as stopping crime.

It said anecdotal evidence suggested that over 80 percent of CCTV images supplied to the police was not up to scratch.

Neville is now leading an initiative to increase conviction rates from CCTV by setting up a database of images to track down offenders and to put pictures of suspects in crimes such as muggings and rape on the Internet, the Guardian said.

"This has got to be balanced against any Big Brother concerns, with safeguards," he said.

Work is under way on whether software can be developed to perform automated searches for suspects on footage, while Neville said officers needed more training on using CCTV with many put off because "it's hard work".

The Association of Chief Police Officers said CCTV could be vital in investigations but there are problems because it has been built up in "a piecemeal way" by organizations other than the police.

"There are questions about how we can make better use of it in the future," said Graeme Gerrard, Deputy Chief Constable of Cheshire Police, ACPO's lead on CCTV.

"As the police officer quoted in the media today has said, better training and more intelligent use of the technology are important to the future development of how we use CCTV."

Agencies

(China Daily 05/07/2008 page11)