July 15, 2007	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 29, 1428

LONDON, July 14: Britain is taking its surveillance to a new level by strapping video cameras to police officers’ heads. Advocates say the devices will cut down on paperwork and supply the nation’s justice system with footage of victims, witnesses and suspects.

Minister for Security Tony McNulty said on Thursday that judges and jurors trying a case would be able to “see and hear the incident through the eyes and ears of the officer at the scene”.

The home office has allocated three million pounds to fund the devices for the country’s 42 police forces — enough to buy more than 2,000 cameras.

Police already use handheld cameras to monitor crowded events and their head-mounted counterparts, worn around the ear or clipped on to a helmet, have been used on a trial basis in Plymouth since 2005. Similar cameras are used by security guards at sports venues to hunt for soccer hooligans.

Versions of the devices have been tested in Denmark.

The national rollout will tighten Britain’s web of video surveillance, already the most extensive in the world. The country is watched over by a network of some four million closed-circuit cameras and civil liberties campaigners complain that the average Briton is recorded as many as 300 times a day.

In a report on the Plymouth pilot project published by the home office on Thursday, policemen praised the head-held cameras for deterring bad behaviour and providing excellent evidence in court.

They said rowdy youths quickly calmed when they realised they were being filmed, and those arrested for drunkenness at night seldom challenged police when shown videos of their behaviour in the morning. Prosecutors credited the cameras with emboldening victims of domestic violence to press charges against their partners, although the director of Rights of Women, Ranjit Kaur, said she had not been convinced the footage alone could help secure a conviction.

The Association of Chief Police Officers, an independent body of senior officials in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, gave the devices a cautious welcome, saying courts might someday expect everything police said to be backed by video evidence.—AP