Seven of ten murders solved by CCTV

Almost seven out of ten murders are solved using footage captured by CCTV cameras, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

By Richard Edwards, Crime Correspondent
Published: 4:34PM GMT 01 Jan 2009

The first study of its kind into the effectiveness of surveillance cameras revealed that almost every Scotland Yard murder inquiry uses their footage as evidence.

In 90 murder cases over a one year period, CCTV was used in 86 investigations, and senior officers said it helped to solve 65 cases by capturing the murder itself on film, or tracking the movements of the suspects before or after an attack.

In a third of the cases a good quality still image was taken from the footage from which witnesses identified the killer.

Britain has more cameras in public spaces than any other country in the world – an estimated 4.2 million – and a person can be captured up to 300 times a day by CCTV in London. However the proliferation of the spy systems has caused controversy, with civil rights campaigners criticising the creeping growth of a "surveillance society" that is invading the privacy of law-abiding citizens.

A report by the Surveillance Studies Network said that £500 million of public money had been invested in CCTV over the last decade and that during the 1990s the Home Office spent 78 per cent of its crime prevention budget on installing cameras.

However no study had ever been conducted to determine their effectiveness and some anecdotal evidence had previously suggested that they were of little investigative value.

Commander Simon Foy, Scotland Yard's head of homicide, told the Daily Telegraph that the results of his study proved that CCTV cameras are as vital to detectives as forensic evidence such as DNA samples or fingerprints.

Mr Foy said: "CCTV plays a huge role in helping us investigate serious crime. I hope people can understand how important it is to our success in catching people who commit murder."

One of the most infamous cases is that of Richard Whelan, who was stabbed to death on a bus in 2005 as he attempted to defend his girlfriend. The horrific 33-second attack was all caught on camera. Anthony Joseph, a paranoid schizophrenic, baited the victim by throwing chips at his girlfriend and the killer grinned at a CCTV camera as he left the bus.