Today we all now what Security Cameras are or in more technical words CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) . What we all must realise is just how useful these things are, for the honest folk amongst us they should not be a problem but to the dishonest they are proving to be a everyday problem.
Simply read your local newspaper or watch your local news and you will soon realise just how many small crimes go on around us and the ones the Police requests for witnesses would be easier if CCTV and decent Security Cameras had been present.
CCTV systems can simply be a means to deter the criminals from actually attempting a crime against you and keep the criminal away from your property, or simply catch them in the act. Every business that has CCTV installed and has been done correctly to serve the purpose and not to fulfil a low budget is a business owners most helpful tool, whether it is to catch the light fingered person on the counter, short or missing stock and of course the Health & Safety aspect , not forgetting the most common today the walk in thief who just walks into the office picks up a mobile phone, handbags etc and just disappears, plus the worst which is of course the burglary.
Should CCTV be a tool just for business,? no it should not, domestic sales are approaching a level equivalent to commercial sales, maybe homeowners possibly have more to protect than weathered down businesses at the height of a second consecutive recession.
How useful can it be? Recently a claim was made against a local council by a young woman who claims to have tripped over an early morning cleaners Vacuum cable and broken her left arm in the fall, she reported the incident and it seemed to be forgotten about until some 3 to 4 months later an accident claims company made a claim against the council for thousands of pounds on behalf of the injured woman, on the date of the incident the footage from the DVR which was a 32 Channel PC based server was put onto CD for archiving, the video looked like a genuine trip even though the cable was marked with Yellow boards, the Council were getting worried.
What the council didn’t realise was the PC Based DVR was loaded with 12Tb’s (12,000 Gigabytes) giving a recording period of way in excess of 6 months, so from our information they went back to the day and a Speed Dome on a tour across the Car Park clearly identified the young woman getting out of the passenger seat of a car and clearly showed her remove a sling from her left arm before she went into the council building, this proved the arm was in injured prior to the so called fall.
So what was the outcome.
No1: This incident if it had been successful would have cost the council more than any burglary or theft.
No 2:The cleaner no doubt had an disciplinary for something that was not her fault
No 3: The accident claims company must have held back the claim for several months to ensure that there was no CCTV footage still available and the DVR systems would have overwritten some months earlier, remember these companies who claim No Win No Fee still draw huge sums from insurance companies, this is not what you expect from a company who we used to see regularly on the TV adverts.
No 4: The accident claims company initially rejected any evidence , but when the council defended the claim on the grounds of CCTV evidence that proved a false claim was going on their mind was soon changed and the young woman was suddenly in the firing line.
No 5: The young woman later admitted to the Police that she had fractured her arm a few hours earlier.
This shows that the correct system can do the job, if money is available don’t skimp it.
