£2 million new Sussex CCTV centre opens in Brighton

Since closed circuit television cameras were introduced in the 1990s, the footage has proved a vital way of monitoring events as they unfold and gather evidence for court cases.

Until now, though, the technology has been unwieldy, time-consuming and expensive to use.

Yesterday the first phase of a £2m project to equip the force with cutting-edge tools to use the cameras was completed with the opening of a new CCTV monitoring centre in Brighton.

Scenes from hundreds of cameras across the county are constantly recorded and uploaded to a digital database – and police can get to the images they need at the click of a mouse.

The upgrade is expected to revolutionise the work both of police responding to emergency calls and detectives hunting for vital clues to serious crimes.

While the technology uses the old cameras, the major drawbacks of the old system were that officers had to travel to access the images and spend hours trying to find the scenes they needed.

This could often mean a full day’s work driving across the county then winding through tapes to try to find the right place.

Under the new system they can simply type in the time and location and instantly view the footage.

To change camera, the operator simply chooses a location from a list on a computer desktop and drags it from one window to another.

Operators can zoom in and out and pan the cameras across the locations they are monitoring.

The camera at Wish Tower in Eastbourne is powerful enough to bring up a clear image of people walking on the pier, about three quarters of a mile away.

The “instant recall”

the new system allows police was first used in a major operation earlier this month, when a demonstration by campaign group Smash EDO threatened to bring Brighton to a standstill.

All of East Sussex’s police CCTV cameras are monitored from Brighton, with a centre at Haywards Heath due to open in September to monitor West Sussex.

It replaces the analogue systems at Bognor and Eastbourne, which are being mothballed but will be called into use if needed.

Chief Superintendent Graham Bartlett, commander of the Sussex Police’s Brighton and Hove Division, said: “The new technology was used very extensively during the May Day protests.

“I was in and out of the centre all the time asking to view bits of footage back, and we could do it instantly.”

To protect the public’s privacy, the footage is destroyed after 30 days, unless it has been called up for use in evidence.

And measures are in place to stop the observation powers being abused.

Each action by an operator is recorded, showing who they are, where they are and what they are looking at. Chief Superintendent Chris Ambler said about 600 officers have been trained to use the system so far – with 2,000 expected to be able to use it by this time next year.

He said: “This is about the delivery of CCTV to the police who need it most. This is achieved by capturing and viewing in the monitoring centres then sending the images to police stations, custody centres and other facilities.

“This really will help to deliver speedier justice.”

There were 57 separate locations being monitored on the three banks of screens in the control room as invited guests toured the facilities at the Brighton centre’s official launch yesterday.

Live scenes from North Laine, Brighton, Warrior Square, St Leonards, Priory Meadow shopping centre in Hastings and Eastbourne seafront sat side-byside on the huge screens.

While those cameras were being viewed, another 350 cameras were recording and uploading their footage to the system around the county.

Security cameras from shopping precincts, businesses and council buildings can also be patched into the network and viewed.

The Sussex Police and Ambulance Helicopter also streams its footage to the centre.

The operators work closely with the force’s command and control centre, where officers monitor incidents and direct the police on the ground to where they are needed most.

They can now view a live stream of an area where an incident takes place in their own office, meaning decision-making should be vastly improved.

The control room inspectors are now able to decide whether officers are needed instantly to deal with an emergency or whether an incident has already finished and fewer police are needed. Officers no longer need to travel to the centres to find and collect the recordings.

Instead, police in custody centres and main police stations can get instant access to what they need and show suspects the recordings straight away.

Inspector Roger Fox, who managed the upgrade said: “Offenders will be confronted with the relevant images at their first interview. As a result we anticipate swifter justice and a better service for victims of cime.”

The touch-of-a-button system means unprecedented coverage of the county.

Brian Watkinson, a police CCTV supervisor who worked on the development of the equipment, said: “We can cover the seafronts of Sussex, from Selsey to Kent, faster than the helicopter.”

ben.parsons @theargus.co.uk