At a *mumblemumblenoname* place I used to work, a colleague had his bicycle unchained and nicked in plain view of two cameras and right under the window of *mumblemumblenoname* estate's security office.
When he requested the footage, with a crime number and a report from the Met, he was told 'no', on 'Data Protection' grounds.
The reason for the mumbling is that we think mmmmFFMM-MMMFG-MMmmumble's security contractor has taken legal advice about the unlikely - and purely speculative - possibility that it might be their own staff nicking stuff.
Well, the DPA has significant restrictions on its application where the information in question relates to the prevention or detection of crime (s.29), so this sounds like a rather weak excuse. Furthermore, if I read your description correctly, it sounds like your colleague might have had a claim against your employer for negligence! At the very least, issuing such a claim might have forced disclosure of the tape...
It wasn't our employer, it was the management company of *mumble* commercial estate in *mumble* with overseas investments generating enough of Britain's GDP to be visible from orbit with the naked eye. Or at least, unaided by a decimal point.
My colleague, an uncompromising Scotsman with a habit of intoning 'Good Morning' like a Judge handing down a Death Sentence, finally prised the video footage out of them with the assistance of the Met: the twin threats he used were the phrase 'Aiding and Abetting' and the legally-dubious but well-worth-investigating observation that obstructing a criminal investigation is a criminal offence even if it isn't the Police investigating. At first the didn't swallow it; the next threat, that the Met would come asking for the footage, was dismissed with contemptuous amusement by the security goons - rightly confident that minor property crime in London is rarely investigated - right up until a Detective Inspector rang them up and asked them why they were withholding evidence of a crime.
The footage was so severely fuzzed that the faces of the criminals were unrecognisable - not just unusable in a court of law, but worthless as a starting point for an investigation. Personally, I'd've paid an AV expert to look at it and tell me if it was a 'post-production' loss of quality; but then, I have a nasty suspicious mind.
Either way, the story serves to make another point entirely: on-street CCTV footage makes no contribution whatsoever to he detection and conviction of criminals. Even when the operators offer the footage willingly.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2008-09-07 02:00 pm (UTC)When he requested the footage, with a crime number and a report from the Met, he was told 'no', on 'Data Protection' grounds.
The reason for the mumbling is that we think mmmmFFMM-MMMFG-MMmmumble's security contractor has taken legal advice about the unlikely - and purely speculative - possibility that it might be their own staff nicking stuff.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-07 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-07 04:41 pm (UTC)My colleague, an uncompromising Scotsman with a habit of intoning 'Good Morning' like a Judge handing down a Death Sentence, finally prised the video footage out of them with the assistance of the Met: the twin threats he used were the phrase 'Aiding and Abetting' and the legally-dubious but well-worth-investigating observation that obstructing a criminal investigation is a criminal offence even if it isn't the Police investigating. At first the didn't swallow it; the next threat, that the Met would come asking for the footage, was dismissed with contemptuous amusement by the security goons - rightly confident that minor property crime in London is rarely investigated - right up until a Detective Inspector rang them up and asked them why they were withholding evidence of a crime.
The footage was so severely fuzzed that the faces of the criminals were unrecognisable - not just unusable in a court of law, but worthless as a starting point for an investigation. Personally, I'd've paid an AV expert to look at it and tell me if it was a 'post-production' loss of quality; but then, I have a nasty suspicious mind.
Either way, the story serves to make another point entirely: on-street CCTV footage makes no contribution whatsoever to he detection and conviction of criminals. Even when the operators offer the footage willingly.