Criminals caught red handed in Richmond by Viseum's intelligent moving camera

(04/02/2010)

One of the latest authorities to realise the power of Viseum’s IMC (intelligent moving camera) is the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, who report the Viseum IMC was an almost instant success in clearing up trouble in a reported crime hot-spot.

In Richmond, the borough’s first Viseum IMC captured high quality evidence from over 150m away, of criminals preparing themselves for a ‘day’s work’ by putting on the tools of their trade – the gloves they would then use to try and commit crime anonymously. This is just one of the scenarios where the Viseum IMC really comes into its own.

Stuart Thompson, Viseum’s Managing Director and inventor of the IMC technology, said: “We’re incredibly excited about the IMC and our customers are too. We have developed a multi-tasking camera that doesn’t just tick all the boxes – it actually records and prevents crimes, unlike traditional PTZ cameras that simply face the wrong way most of the time and have become a laughing stock with hardened criminals.”

“Groups of men putting on black hoods and gloves in broad daylight is a very unusual activity,” explains Stuart Thompson, “and it is certainly something that CCTV operators and the police would be interested in. Yet standard PTZ cameras would simply miss everything unless they had the good fortune of pointing the right way with an operator controlling and watching it. With the Viseum IMC, we pre-programme in the intelligence so that a range of unusual activities like this are not only recognised, it is exactly the specific activity cameras are ‘trained’ to zoom in on.”

The Manager of the Richmond CCTV scheme, Keith Free, said: “In this particular location, Viseum’s IMC had only been deployed for a couple of weeks, to combat reported anti-social behaviour. It was an added bonus that, following the reporting of a burglary, the footage was viewed and these criminals were caught red handed. The quality of the evidence was excellent. Despite it being shot from over 150m away, and the suspects being disguised in hoods and black clothing, the police were even able to identify them leaving with their bag of ill gotten gains.

“A standard PTZ would, unfortunately, be potentially ineffective in this and many similar scenarios. where multiple areas and activities are required to be monitored. The local area has had no reported crime or anti social behaviour since; the Viseum IMC cameras have proved very effective in targeting anti social behaviour and we are in the process of deploying further IMCs in other identified problem areas across the borough.”

Elsewhere, the Viseum IMC has also killed anti-social behaviour problems stone dead. It has immediately had the effect of making criminals realise they were actually being watched, and making the general public realise they were actually being protected - unlike previous technologies which often prove so ineffective criminals all but disregard them.

Most open space PTZ cameras have already exceeded their life expectancy and in any case, through cost and lack of resources, most of these are pointing the wrong way when crimes occur. Viseum presents an unparalleled value for money offering for clients to stay on top of all their camera installations. This is being achieved by replacing or upgrading PTZ cameras to become IMCs, which in turn enables control room staff to spend their time most effectively, maximises overall efficiencies and enables a much more viable solution for CCTV scheme expansion.

Related topics:  CCTV cameras and domes   Monitoring systems   Security guarding   Tagging vandalism and theft prevention 

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