Last updated 11:41, Tuesday, 06 May 2008

When a top police officer tells us Britain’s plethora of close circuit spy cameras has done little or nothing to cut or control street crime, there’s reason to worry.

The UK has more CCTV cameras watching and monitoring our movements than any other country in Europe. Justification for huge investment of billions in their use for silent policing was their potential for crime control by fear factor.

But now Det Ch Insp Mike Neville, of London’s Metropolitan force, admits criminals have no fear of the cameras, police are unable adequately to process the images they provide and no thought has gone into how the technology should be used. He describes CCTV’s purpose failure as an utter fiasco.

Det Ch Insp Neville poured disparaging scorn on close to useless CCTV as he outlined proposals for an improved monitoring system, fully backed by dedicated police investigating units able to make best use of it and exposure of filmed offenders on the internet.

There are more than 4.2 million cameras in the UK, but until 2006 there was no dedicated police unit to deal with collection of CCTV evidence.

That fact alone leads us towards depressing confirmation of suspicions that, for a decade or more, the politics of street spy-cameras have been more about crude attempts at control than workable crime prevention.