ACPO expert admits CCTV cameras do not deter crime

The Daily Telegraph says that Graeme Gerrard, head of CCTV at the Association of Chief Police Officers, has said Surveillance cameras do little, if anything, to prevent late night alcohol-fuelled crime and violence on Britain's high streets.

The report goes on:

He told a parliamentary committee that while other countries were astonished at the scale to which Britons were snooped on by the authorities, the evidence suggested CCTV had little impact on levels of late-night violence.

He also admitted the public had been "misled" into believing that installing camera systems would have a big impact on anti-social behaviour.

And it quotes Chris Huhne, the new Lib Dem shadow home secretary as saying:

"We need to seriously rethink our gung-ho enthusiasm for the surveillance on every street corner in the country."