From the Revd Geoffrey Squire
Sir, - I read with interest "CCTV: more supporters" (News, 3
January). Your report makes reference to the use of CCTV "in
order to prevent acts of terrorism". The vast majority of British
CCTV use has, however, nothing whatever to do with terrorism or
serious crime, but much more to do with a very heavy-handed
approach to trivial offences such as minor littering and parking on
yellow lines.
One very decent young graduate whom I know can probably never
work with children, because his 100-year police record for
disorder-related obscenity was disclosed on his CRB form. One may
say that no one with a police record for obscenity is suitable to
work with children, but all he did was to give a V-sign to a CCTV
camera that was being used in an unacceptable manner. The police
arrived with sirens wailing and lights flashing, and he was given
an £80 Penalty Notice for Disorder (PND) fine "for obscenity": "For
making an obscene sign to the camera and therefore to the officer
observing it".
We know of several other very decent young people who have had
their careers or vocations destroyed by such extreme use of CCTV
and the PND. If those Christians who took part in that survey knew
about that, they would probably have given a very different
answer.
Furthermore, one has to ask why it is that most other EC nations
do not see the need for the use of CCTV "to prevent acts of
terrorism", and why the present British use of CCTV is the most
extreme of any nation at any time, except, perhaps, the former
communist East Germany.
GEOFFREY SQUIRE
Administrator, Youthlink (England and Wales)
Little Cross, Goodleigh
Barnstaple
Devon EX32 7NR