A day in the life of... a CCTV operator

There can’t be many council jobs that offer the sheer variety that come with being a CCTV operator. You may think that it sounds like the perfect excuse to sit and watch TV screens, but nothing could be further from the truth.

While sitting talking to Steve, one of the council’s CCTV operators, you can see proof that there’s “never a dull moment”, as he puts it. He’s alerted via the Thanet Safe radio system to reports of someone trying to shoplift in Cliftonville. Almost immediately, he’s found the suspect on one of the area’s 96 cameras and is following him along the street. John’s knowledge of the area shows immediately, as he confidently predicts that the man is heading straight for the shops in Margate. He’s back on the radio, alerting shopkeepers there through the Shop Safe system to the potential problem.
The operators work a range of shifts on their own, but as Steve says, “you don’t get lonely, there’s too much going on. Everyone can want a piece of you. You get calls from the police control room, police officers popping in and, although you do get your quiet moments, it’s usually like this from start to finish.” As well as keeping an eye on the bank of monitors in front of them, the operators also log everything that happens in case they need to give evidence in court. In a year, that can amount to 6,000 entries.   There are plenty of examples of incidents, like the near miss with the beach inspector’s hut on Margate Main Sands in the early hours of the morning. Steve spotted a group of lads looking back at the beach and used one of the cameras, which can zoom in long distances to see what the cause of the excitement was. He saw flames coming from the hut, and a quick call to the police and fire service ensured that it wasn’t burnt to the ground.
		“Some movement does catch your eye, especially at night, and you do learn body language,” says Steve. “You get to know when someone’s acting aggressively. The people that are of interest to us are the people who are breaking the law. We’re not watching people who are just going about their day to day business.”

While some people may see the cameras as a way to spy on people, Street Scene Enforcement Manager, Phil Snook, who’s responsible for the CCTV system, is quick to dismiss that. “We have a strict code of practise that we get audited on. No footage goes out of this room unless it’s seized by the police.”

Since the first CCTV cameras were installed in Thanet, in August 1997, the control room has become highly valued by the police. “Our relationship with them is very good. We encourage them to come into the control room and they have a good rapport with our operators,” according to Phil.  

Some people simply forget about the cameras, which can make for some surreal moments. “We’ve had someone prize open a car door and go through its contents, right underneath a camera. They were totally oblivious to the fact we were watching them,” says Steve. “In another incident, we had a gang stealing lead every night and they even stole the black bags to carry some of it in from Iceland!”  In both cases, arrests were made as a result of the CCTV footage.

There are also times when the system can react so quickly that people don’t even realise there’s been a crime. “I was watching an elderly lady just sitting in the centre of Ramsgate and a guy walked past, took her handbag, which was next to her, tucked it under his coat and walked off with it,” Steve tells me. The bag was safely returned to its rightful owner and the culprit caught, thanks to CCTV.

It’s these sort of incidents that make the job worthwhile for Steve. “The job satisfaction comes from seeing the criminals caught at the end of the day.”

Facts about CCTV in Thanet

• The control room covers the town centres and seafronts of Broadstairs, Cliftonville, Margate and Ramsgate, along with the centres of Newington and Westbrook and the Leopold Street car park in Ramsgate.
• Since the first cameras were installed in August 1997, the control room has been open 24 hours a day, seven days a week ever since, including all the Bank Holidays.
• The council has six operators to monitor the cameras, usually working a shift pattern of four days on, four days off, with three shifts throughout the day – early morning to early afternoon, early afternoon to the evening, and overnight.

Community Safety Unit 

E-mail: community.safety@thanet.gov.uk

Tel: 01843 577888