Hatfield Secondary School near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, is using digitally-recorded CCTV to tackle a range of premises security problems.
On November 10, 2001, while hosting the local church fair, Hatfield Secondary School near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, suffered an arson attack on an assembly hall. The attack was recorded through the CCTV system on an OCTAR digital video recorder from Visimetrics; a youth was arrested and is now released on bail. South Yorkshire CID has been using recorded images from OCTAR, taken as evidence to assist them in their enquiries, pending prosecution. The youth has been interviewed under caution. The recorded images were made available to the audio-visual unit of Thorne CID within 20 minutes after power had been restored to the school’s main building and in under 24 hours officers were able to make an arrest. Detective Constable Simon Honeybone, of Thorne CID commented: ?There’s no shadow of a doubt that the footage recorded on the OCTAR has helped us to identify the youth and has been the main focus of our enquiry. Without footage from the cameras I don’t think we would have got very far with our enquiries.?
Jim Butterley, Premises Officer, is responsible for the security system at Hatfield School and was first on the scene when the alarms went off. He says: ?We have some very good images of the incident. It clearly shows two youths probably no older than seven and 14 years of age respectively, getting into the assembly hall and, seconds after they leave, thick black smoke is seen billowing out of the door behind them. We have recorded footage of them all over the school through 20 cameras.? The fire caused an estimated œ1.9m damage, and the school is now considering demolishing and rebuilding the assembly hall.
Hatfield School, with 1,200 pupils and 80 teachers has a 40-acre site. Jim and his team manage a 49-camera CCTV system; the 40 internal cameras are connected to three OCTAR systems and since last summer the nine external cameras are connected to an OCTAR Compact. The school now records all cameras round the clock.
Previously all recordings were made on to videotape; the digital system was installed about 18 months ago and is making a difference. Jim’s decision to go digital was an easy one to make. He comments: ?There are no tapes, you can’t forget to rewind a tape, you don’t have to spend hours bent double over a VCR trying to find a bit of footage. Instead I can sit at my desk, work on the computer and in a couple of clicks I’ve found the footage I want and can print it out instantly. The OCTAR system is amazing.? The OCTAR system is helping Jim and his colleagues keep problems of theft and vandalism to a minimum. For example, a recent incident occurred where two pupils broke into the cleaner?s storeroom and stole two sets of master keys. This incident was recorded on an OCTAR, and within 15 minutes the pupils were handing the keys back. Jim gave them the option to see what they had done by replaying them the recording on the OCTAR or to just hand over the keys – there was no argument. Jim adds: ?There are some places where we can’t put cameras, such as changing rooms, however, we have put cameras at the entrances to these areas. We had an incident where a couple of pupils were stealing from the changing rooms. We caught them with the help of OCTAR, where we have footage of them entering and leaving the area when they shouldn?t have been.? Since the OCTAR system was installed the school has also been able to convict pupils who were caught breaking into a disused bungalow within the school grounds and causing criminal damage. Staff agree that the OCTAR system is amazing as it is also helping to cut down incidents of bad behaviour by pupils. If there has been an incident during a lesson, the teacher can ask Jim to view footage from their classroom. Once given the time and date the incident occurred, Jim quickly and easily finds the footage on OCTAR, stops at the relevant place and gives the teacher a print of the image. The teacher can then show the pupil the image and get them to behave. As for bullying, at the least the security system helps all to address the problem if somebody is caught on camera bullying another child. Jim concludes: ?We could not live without the OCTAR system – the equipment is faultless. The staff at Visimetrics are brilliant, particularly James Rigg. If we have a problem or query with the OCTAR system, James is always happy to help.? See www.visimetrics.com.
