INTER FORCE ASSISTANCE
PO Box 999, Salford M5 2WY
Tel: 0161 737 9990, Fax: 0161 737 5553
From: Trevor Barton, Director
To: Inspector Nigel Cawthorne, Trevor Green, Bob Parker.
12th November, 1998
On Wednesday, 21st October, 1998 I visited Shipley town centre and having liaised with Inspector Cawthorne and Bob Parker and PC Rick Pentith, who is part of the Community Action Team for the police covering Shipley town centre.
I began my visit at the police station in Shipley where I discussed the CCTV system at length.
I noticed in the Summer'98 ~ edition 2 of the periodical 'Crime Fighter' there is an article at page 9 entitled 'Cameras close in the villains - CCTV in operation'. The article commences, "Closed circuit television is proving a major success in West Yorkshire, after two murder convictions were secured with the help of CCTV footage." It continues ,"the case dramatically illustrates the usefulness of CCTV in helping detect serious crimes, but it can be just as useful in less serious incidents and brings a 'feelsafe' factor to city centres.". It further continues, "Mr. John Midgley, Town Centre Manager for Dewsbury, said the proposals (for 23 cameras) were exciting news for the area. 'Basically, any large town centre needs CCTV, not only for preventing crime and creating public reassurance, but from a business and marketing angle. Existing businesses and new ones wanting to invest in the area will be greatly encouraged by the new safety enhancing project'. "
It is apparent that in Shipley there has been no spectacular arrest or detection as a result of the installation of CCTV which went live in May this year.
The police at Shipley, however, are making use of the system and are retrospectively reviewing tapes about twice a week to try and identify offenders for various crimes such as organised shop lifting, burglary and theft, as yet unsuccessfully.
At the present the cameras tend to be pointed, when they are 'resting', on automatic telling machines and the odd problematic licensed premises.
With the control room being some distance away there are a few anecdotal tales as to its effectiveness which require addressing.
I had a discussion at length with PC Pentith who has been given the task of ensuring that the predetermined patrols of the cameras are addressing the current crime and public order offences. It was noted that PC Pentith had already tabulated the premises that could be seen from each of the cameras. We discussed how he could look at all the offences in those areas and ensure that a preprogrammed patrol would cover the areas affected both from a day and night perspective.
This evaluation is not to be underestimated. It requires considerable time and effort to carry it out and I believe that PC Pentith's enthusiasm will see him through to the end of a rather daunting process. It is, however, this process that will maximise the chance of offences being detected automatically.
This underlines the ethos that the detection of crime and the arrest of offenders for public order matters should not be reliant on technology but that technology, in this case in the form of a CCTV system, should be led by the operational requirements and intelligence which is in possession of the police and the council.
I then visited the control room at Keighley and my findings are as follows:-
In Keighley control room the operator watches four television monitors. There are three on the bottom row and one top centre. The Shipley monitor is to the left, the Bingley monitor is to the right and the Keighley monitor is in the middle. The spot monitor is used to highlight one of the cameras from the three town centres when its contents merit the attention of the observer and may then need recording in real time.
It is obvious that the quality of picture emanating from the cameras in Shipley is excellent. One of the five cameras was deficient in that it could not pan or tilt but all the other functions were working perfectly. Arrangements were in hand for the repair of the camera the following day and there does not seem to be any are no problems for ongoing maintenance and timely intervention.
It should be noted that Shipley has five cameras, Bingley six and Keighley twelve. With the pictures rotating through in sequence, clearly each camera in Shipley gets slightly more of the operator's time than those in Keighley. The question of equity, however, becomes somewhat more confused when recording is taken into consideration.
There is a bank of time lapse video recorders covering the three town centres, a real time video recorder which is activated by the operator and another video recorder which can be used to play back prerecorded imagery. Again, all equipment is of a high specification and is working well but it is in the arena of tape storage and tape recording that I believe further matters need addressing.
There are 200 S/VHS video tapes which are rotated on a regular basis. Since 4th June, 1998 each tape has already been recorded over on at least eleven occasions (maximum recommended varies from eight to eleven)
Tapes that are put on one side for specific incidents are in the same cabinet as tapes that are not so required. When we examined the tape in the real time recorder, which is the one that is most likely to go to court, it was discovered that it was a VHS tape that had been previously used by the police. This could seriously undermine the evidential probity if eventually such a tape was required at court. The tapes being used for the time lapse video recorders are Fuji Pro S/VHS and it may be thought that the expense of these tapes could be eased by a VHS tape of a high quality.
What was, however, somewhat surprising was that the Shipley and Bingley tapes are set at 72 hour time lapse whilst the Keighley time lapse video recorder was on 3 hours which obviously, with a three hour tape means it is recording in real time.
In effect this means that every three days a new tape is required to be inserted for Bingley and Shipley but that for Keighley there are eight tapes a day required.
The operator, who appeared well versed in the use of the equipment, was obviously unable to explain why such instructions had been given.
Tape use, tape storage and the protocols to be agreed by the three town centres and their respective police colleagues are something that requires a compliance with Force instructions on imagery as well as a collective decision making process as to what is required for time lapse recording.
It seems to me pointless to do real time recording on a time lapse video recorder but it is equally surprising that the users at Shipley and Bingley can be satisfied in viewing a tape which is recording one frame every two seconds. These problems require a coherent review from the persons concerned.
There are three staff working in the control room. I have only seen one at the present stage who seems to be content with his employment.
The working conditions are not ideal and it was noted that the staff use one corner to make their refreshments in the same room in which some highly sophisticated and expensive video equipment is in use. It was also noted that the sides of the recording cabinet had been removed in order to assist in keeping the equipment working at an ambient temperature. This, however, breaches health and safety regulations and should be addressed.
It was noted that the maps of the three areas showing the deployment of the CCTV cameras were hand drawn and required professionalising. It was noted that the operator is able to listen to the Keighley police radio system but for some reason was not able to listen to the Shipley system.
It is simply not acceptable to deny police officers at the front line in Shipley the safety and backup of knowing that their transmissions are being monitored on a £135,000 system because of the unwillingness to provide a direct telephone line from the Area Operations Room.
It is accepted that the operator cannot listen to two transmissions at once but I am aware of fairly simple audio receiving equipment that can take the first transmission and then become available for either as demand allows.
The CCTV system needs a 'Shop Watch - Store Net' type anti-shop lifter system to breathe life into it.
It is in the synergy of technologies where the best results are found. The combination of the operator working with the stores and the police using the CCTV system would certainly bring it more to life.
With only a cursory visit I am still not sure if the operating staff shifts meeting the operational requirements of the three different centres. I could find no evidence of the different town centres discussing with the Bradford City Council what their requirements are. Perhaps the Town Centre Management Groups could occasionally meet to thrash out a common consensus on use.
I did not see an operator friendly contingency plan or reference manual for the use of the equipment but 1 may have overlooked it.
The trees in the town centre at Shipley require urgent attention. There is in effect one quarter of the shops in the town centre square that cannot be monitored by the cameras. I realise that there may be some resentment but pruning the trees is not the answer. In my opinion they should be removed and replaced by stanchions capable of holding attractive flower baskets and at the base there should also be some kind of floral display.
I examined some of the stored tapes for content. It should be remembered that the sophisticated CCTV cameras installed in Shipley are those which automatically switch to black and white in poor lighting conditions. I noted, however, that even late at night, there was sufficient illumination from lamp standards and shops that allowed the cameras to continued to record in colour.
It was noted that some of the preprogrammed patrols seem to be dominated by what was taking place on the road as opposed to what was taking place on the footpaths and at the shop fronts. This will, of course, be addressed consequent upon PC Pentith's research.
The amount of ownership by the police of camera systems remotely monitored is as yet questionable. Without burdening the CCTV operators with unnecessary paperwork it may be considered useful if a very short summary relating to crime and incidents was sent to the control room in order for them to get a feel of what was happening and when and where.
The CCTV system will not produce results on its own. The operators seem to know and understand the system but are starved of the intelligence to proactively use it to its maximum.
The foregoing is not meant to be unnecessarily critical but is a snapshot of my findings on a fairly cursory visit. It is still early days and one would hope that in the next six months the system is increased to its optimum use.
It certainly is a system designed to very high specifications and should serve Shipley well for some considerable time to come. It can, however, become 'out of sight, out of mind' and there need to be structures in place to ensure that its usefulness is consistently evaluated.
Trevor Barton.
Director.