Technology & Trends - CCTV

How a local authority has gone about putting a new CCTV monitoring system through its paces, in the real world. Luton has a track record of getting the best out of its town centre CCTV scheme.  More than 130 cameras are monitored 24-365 by a team of control centre operators who have collectively played their part in more than 6,000 arrests and who have on several occasions received commendations from the police for their work.  These have included helping to identify a serial rapi...

Bob Randall, chief operating officer of Inkerman, took Mark Rowe out to lunch.  The terror threat is as high as it's ever been, he said; but don't panic.  Bob Randall became the corporate risk, intelligence and investigation consultancy's Chief Operating Officer recently (featured in our September issue).  A career Metropolitan Police man, he retired as a detective chief supt.  His work took in counter-terrorism, covert operations, security, major investigations,...

At a time when private security companies are coming under greater public scrutiny following two recent high profile cash snatches, the whole industry is on the verge of collapse, according to security boss, Major Frank Quigley.  Major Quigley, a retired Military Police officer who has advised the Ministry of Defence on the establishment of its own security services is a director of a rapidly expanding medium sized security company, Guarding UK Ltd.  He said: “The industry has b...

Britain’s police forces have been urged to embrace the private security industry in the fight against crime as the industry undergoes the biggest change in its history. Andy Drane, Deputy Chief Executive of the Security Industry Authority (SIA), the government body tasked with regulating the private security industry, told a Reliance Security Services conference in Manchester yesterday that the changes promised a new future for law enforcement. “The police now have no philosophical...

The view that ‘dodgy' guard people will be on the way out and prices will rise for guard providers is rose-tinted, according to Douglas Greenwell, Marketing Director, of G4S Security Services (UK).  He spoke of his firm putting through price increases of about two per cent, to recover from licensing, and meeting some resistance from customers.  He said: "That's to reinforce the message - the only way prices are going to go up, or the only way we are going to improve our returns,...

Northamptonshire is the model for joined-up work on business crime, the launch event for the county-wide business crime reduction partnership heard. Introducing Northamptonshire Action Against Business Crime was Sir David O’Dowd, the former Northants chief constable who agreed to be patron of NAABC.  Sir David pointed to the December issue of Professional Security regarding the latest British Retail Consortium crime survey.  He described NAABC as the next evolutionary step in th...

What might police modernisation mean for private security companies and consultancies?  Alan Beckley, director, Baddiley Associates, offers some pointers. Greater inclusion in the ‘extended family of policing’ Need to form new relationships based on new police structure Need to understand new boundaries and new responsibilities Vigilance to spot new opportunities and police tasks, roles and responsibilities that fall off the list of police priorities Vig...

The venue for a recent business crime conference was an example of good practice, the event heard.   Bob Golding, Warwickshire Police Assistant Chief Constable and ACPO lead on business crime, was among speakers at the Belfry golf club.  Welcoming the audience to Warwickshire, ACC Golding said he hoped that their cars would not be broken into.  Such crime at the club near Birmingham - thieves breaking into cars to take laptops, on view on back seats - is no longer a hot-spot...