Date: 13/3/07
Author: 
Source: The Norwich Evening News

Tiny CCTV cameras could soon be used by wardens or police on the streets of Norwich as the latest weapon in the war on yobs.

The devices, which are discreetly placed on officers' headwear, have been trialled in other parts of the country, including Sunderland, Cleveland and Plymouth, and have helped in the crackdown on low-level crime and alcohol-related violence.

Steve Morphew, leader of Norwich City Council, has just returned from a fact-finding trip to Nottingham, where the cameras are already being used to reduce anti-social behaviour on the streets.

Mr Morphew is keen to see if the cameras could be used in Norwich to deal with city problems as highlighted in the Evening News as part of our Reclaim Our Communities campaign.

He said the cameras could be used to capture images of youths spraying graffiti or behaving in other anti-social ways and used, if needed, as evidence.

“It means people can walk around recording what's going on and gathering evidence. It's being used in Nottingham and is an incredibly powerful tool because youngsters don't misbehave when they are being recorded.

“It will be well worth evaluating to see if we could use it. It might be able to be used in certain situations rather than police or wardens having them all the time.”

Julian Foster, chairman of the Central Norwich Citizens' Forum, said: “I would be in support of it and wholeheartedly support what Steve is saying.”

Roger Moore, chairman of the St Stephen's Community Partnership which covers areas including Vauxhall Street, Suffolk Square, and Globe Place, said: “If the police had these cameras at least if someone smashed a window they couldn't say 'it wasn't me, I wasn't there', because we get that happen quite a lot in our area, especially over the Suffolk Square shops.”

Norwich South MP and ex-home secretary Charles Clarke said: “The problem that the police and courts have in dealing with anti social behaviour is the provision of evidence, and so videos like this are worth exploring from this point of view.”

At least 12 offenders have been punished elsewhere in the country using evidence recorded by the camera, with crimes recorded ranging from breaking into a car to assaulting a police officer

and fighting outside a nightclub.

After playing back the footage, police say all the offenders accepted their guilt rather than tying up magistrates' time with a “not guilty” plea.

The devices, which became available for individual forces to test from December 2005, enable officers to confront offenders with their crimes by replaying footage to them on the spot.

Norfolk police already use CCTV cameras to record crowd behaviour at football matches at Carrow Road and in some cases in drugs raids to capture evidence. A spokesman for Norfolk police said: “It would be something that we would look at in the future, but not something we have made a decision on now.”

In December the Evening News reported how hi-tech mobile cameras will be set up in troublespots across the area in a second wave of an effort to combat crime.

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