Crime: 28 July 2014

1. Phase 1.  If I report a crime in your road, or anywhere near you, we would like everyone with a domestic CCTV system, to check it for the relevant times.  We would like you to look through it, to see if you have any useful footage.  When we ran this last time, residents came up with some very dramatic results.  What we found, was that offenders may have tried several other properties – unsuccessfully – before, they actually committed a ‘noticeable’ crime.  Many of those that checked their CCTV, were completely unaware that an offender had actually been onto their property.  The offender may have just been looking for an opportunist target, or tried a door handle / unsuccessfully to break in, leaving no evidence that anything had happened.  Once people checked their CCTV because they knew an offender had been in their area, it turned up brilliant footage of people going up and down driveways and attempting to force garage / side doors.  So – no need to check every day, unless you have evidence of some tampering, but definitely check, if I report a crime near you.
2. Phase 2.  We would like to create a database of all the residents, who have a functioning domestic CCTV system, initially in hotspot areas.  The aim ?  If we are aware of something happening in, or near, your road, for example - preparation for crime / opportunist thieves out and about in a particular area possibly sussing out potential targets – we could look on a map, see if someone in that area has CCTV and we may possibly ask if we can come and view it.