CCTV from buses used to investigate three crimes in 12 months in Havering
CCTV footage was used to investigate less than one per cent of crimes on Havering’s buses in the last year.
Despite around 400 crimes a year being committed on buses in the borough, and each double-decker bus being fitted with around seven hi-tech cameras each, it appears that the the cameras are hardly used when investigating crime.
Responding to a Freedom of Information request from the Recorder, Transport for London (TfL) have said that just three crimes were investigated using the footage between September 2010 and August 2011.
Intrusive
Nick Pickles, director of the Big Brother Watch group, said: “As these figures once again remind us, CCTV is an expensive, intrusive and largely ineffectual way of protecting the public.
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“Despite a much higher number of crimes being committed, CCTV was only requested in a handful of cases, demonstrating its ineffectiveness as both a deterrent and a tool for the police investigating crime.
He added: “CCTV is not a substitute for real policing, and figures like this only reaffirm the need for a debate about how the public can be better protected from crime.”
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However a spokesman for Havering police said: “We are trying to verify these figures. They don’t seem to tally with our own records.”
The TfL response said that police had requested the footage five times in the last year and they had provided it on three occassions.
Crime on Havering buses rose by three per cent between 2009 and 2010.
