Borough wide CCTV cameras which are managed and operated by North East Lincolnshire Council’s delivery partner Equans, have supported emergency services over 600 times across a three month period.
From April to June this year, footage from the £2.2 million system, introduced in January last year, was used to help police catch people drug dealing as well as recording drivers committing Anti-Social Behaviour related crimes.
With over 130 cameras across North East Lincolnshire, the control room is able to capture events as they happen, but also store footage to be used retrospectively by emergency services as evidence.
In April, CCTV was used 200 times to support a major incident – which is defined as an event attended by Emergency Services. In May CCTV helped with 206 major incidents and 215 in June.
Across June, the cameras captured a number of crimes from vandalism to assault. On Saturday, 8 June, there were three separate crimes happening from 1am to 7.30pm where camera footage was used to direct police or used as evidence.
At 1am, CCTV operatives recorded a person vandalising parts of the town centre before assaulting a woman and driving away. However, thanks to the wide coverage of the system, cameras managed to track the suspect and direct police to their location.
At 3am, a motorist was spotted doing donuts in a Cleethorpes car park and was dealt with by Humberside Police thanks to images recorded by the cameras. The final event at 7.30pm involved locating a missing person. By following their movements on the CCTV, police were able to attend and ensured the person was found safe and well.
CCTV footage captured a number of other incidents throughout June. These included helping to stop drug dealing; gaining images of motorcyclists behaving anti-socially; alerting police to fights; stopping a possible drunk driver and aiding in the seizure of a firearm.
Speaking about this success, Councillor Ron Shepherd, Portfolio Holder for Safer and Stronger Communities, said: “It’s great to see how much of an impact our cameras have had.
“They are an invaluable resource not only to us, but to the emergency services who rely on them for their investigations and incidents.
“However, none of this would be possible without the hard work of our operatives monitoring the cameras. The team are the unsung heroes of our CCTV network and the work they do is essential in helping to keep the borough safe.”
Article and image from NELC.
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