Video Evidence
Right then. Been working on a trivial case that has required me to obtain evidence from CCTV footage in a well known building society. CCTV is one of those things you either love or hate. I for one love it unless I am on a night shift and you are just about to sit down to eat something, yes the police are human and we do eat when we get the chance, and the radio springs to life with "Hello control, this is CCTV, are you looking at your monitor? There's a person acting suspiciously in the park." Now, bearing in mind the time this kind of call comes in there's always someone acting suspiciously in the park. The main reason for this is due to the clubs closing for the night and the usual drunkards, such a harsh word let's call them "pissheads", losing their automatic pilot and ending up in the bandstand. This normally happens just as soon as you have lovingly prepared your tin of soup/macaroni/stew/stuff, sat down, placed and then placed the spoon in the bowl. You then are required to leap up, put your stab vest back on and head towards the offender who by now may or may not have fallen into the river or at least vomited somewhere nearby. Nine times out of ten you are able to revive the said person and send them back on their homing pigeon course and that's it. However, by this time your stodge has gone cold or been thrown away as it was assumed you'd be away for a while.
That's one thing I like about night shifts. The hour after all the clubs are shut you get to witness a phenomena that most people will never see. Drunk people going home. We are not talking about the ones that cause criminal damage or try to punch anything that moves, we are talking about the people who still manage to find their way home without a taxi. It's a bit like a scene from "Dawn of the dead". Zombi type persons walking along the road. When they are this drunk everything from a crack in the pavement to a lamp post is a challenge. The most interesting bit is when they reach a kerb and have to cross a road. By the way they walk you would think that the kerb was 6ft high and it always amazes me how high they lift their feet to climb it.
Anywho, I digress, but CCTV does have its uses, one good example is where a male was alledged to have assaulted a male causing him to suffer a fractured skull but the CCTV footage shows that he was having an argument with the victim but it was a completely different male who casually walked up to the pair and smacked the injured party (IP) in the head. Also in the case that I originally started waffling about it has its uses as well.
Scenario: complaint by a bloke that he had been shouted at and dragged around by a female offender, we'll call her Delores, into the local building society before being ejected by staff. Delores was arrested, interviewed, and denied the whole thing and said that she had been assaulted by the "IP". Let's bear in mind the fact that the "IP" and the "offender" are both well known, erm, well not very upstanding members of the community.
It took a little while to obtain evidence of the event. The town CCTV amazingly managed to miss every bit of the incident!?!?!?!? However, the last bit of evidence was from inside of the building society. Hey presto, as clear as day you see a lot of the incident, enough to give the offender a happy Christmas £80 fine. The footage itself starts off showing a number of upstanding members of the public "gawping" at what is happening outside the building society before Delores drags "Herbert" into the branch, rants and raves before being ejected by staff, and then outside of the branch you can still see Delores having a go at "Herbert". After viewing the footage Delores says, "Are you sure you've got the right video for that day?" Arrrrggghhhh, nope, it was a random tape I acquired from "Police, Camera, Action." Other comments were, "Well I don't think I was wearing that coat", to which my response was, "You were when you were booked into custody."
The funniest part of this incident was that when Delores viewed the video I had ro rewind it to the correct place. As I did this she said "Look. You can see him pushing me!!" It had to be explained clearly and slowly that the tape was, in fact, going backwards and if I was given the chance she could witness it in real time and going forwards. After a couple of viewings the comments went on to the lines of "My butt was smaller then." Ho hum.
Oh, on a completely different subject, if you are using your mobile phone when driving please do not try and deny it by saying "I've got an ear infection and I don't have a phone like that." Ear infections can easily be proved or disproved, but it's the "phone like that" bit. Errmmm, phone like what?
Right then. Been working on a trivial case that has required me to obtain evidence from CCTV footage in a well known building society. CCTV is one of those things you either love or hate. I for one love it unless I am on a night shift and you are just about to sit down to eat something, yes the police are human and we do eat when we get the chance, and the radio springs to life with "Hello control, this is CCTV, are you looking at your monitor? There's a person acting suspiciously in the park." Now, bearing in mind the time this kind of call comes in there's always someone acting suspiciously in the park. The main reason for this is due to the clubs closing for the night and the usual drunkards, such a harsh word let's call them "pissheads", losing their automatic pilot and ending up in the bandstand. This normally happens just as soon as you have lovingly prepared your tin of soup/macaroni/stew/stuff, sat down, placed and then placed the spoon in the bowl. You then are required to leap up, put your stab vest back on and head towards the offender who by now may or may not have fallen into the river or at least vomited somewhere nearby. Nine times out of ten you are able to revive the said person and send them back on their homing pigeon course and that's it. However, by this time your stodge has gone cold or been thrown away as it was assumed you'd be away for a while.
That's one thing I like about night shifts. The hour after all the clubs are shut you get to witness a phenomena that most people will never see. Drunk people going home. We are not talking about the ones that cause criminal damage or try to punch anything that moves, we are talking about the people who still manage to find their way home without a taxi. It's a bit like a scene from "Dawn of the dead". Zombi type persons walking along the road. When they are this drunk everything from a crack in the pavement to a lamp post is a challenge. The most interesting bit is when they reach a kerb and have to cross a road. By the way they walk you would think that the kerb was 6ft high and it always amazes me how high they lift their feet to climb it.
Anywho, I digress, but CCTV does have its uses, one good example is where a male was alledged to have assaulted a male causing him to suffer a fractured skull but the CCTV footage shows that he was having an argument with the victim but it was a completely different male who casually walked up to the pair and smacked the injured party (IP) in the head. Also in the case that I originally started waffling about it has its uses as well.
Scenario: complaint by a bloke that he had been shouted at and dragged around by a female offender, we'll call her Delores, into the local building society before being ejected by staff. Delores was arrested, interviewed, and denied the whole thing and said that she had been assaulted by the "IP". Let's bear in mind the fact that the "IP" and the "offender" are both well known, erm, well not very upstanding members of the community.
It took a little while to obtain evidence of the event. The town CCTV amazingly managed to miss every bit of the incident!?!?!?!? However, the last bit of evidence was from inside of the building society. Hey presto, as clear as day you see a lot of the incident, enough to give the offender a happy Christmas £80 fine. The footage itself starts off showing a number of upstanding members of the public "gawping" at what is happening outside the building society before Delores drags "Herbert" into the branch, rants and raves before being ejected by staff, and then outside of the branch you can still see Delores having a go at "Herbert". After viewing the footage Delores says, "Are you sure you've got the right video for that day?" Arrrrggghhhh, nope, it was a random tape I acquired from "Police, Camera, Action." Other comments were, "Well I don't think I was wearing that coat", to which my response was, "You were when you were booked into custody."
The funniest part of this incident was that when Delores viewed the video I had ro rewind it to the correct place. As I did this she said "Look. You can see him pushing me!!" It had to be explained clearly and slowly that the tape was, in fact, going backwards and if I was given the chance she could witness it in real time and going forwards. After a couple of viewings the comments went on to the lines of "My butt was smaller then." Ho hum.
Oh, on a completely different subject, if you are using your mobile phone when driving please do not try and deny it by saying "I've got an ear infection and I don't have a phone like that." Ear infections can easily be proved or disproved, but it's the "phone like that" bit. Errmmm, phone like what?
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