CCTV doesn't work - even the police agree now

For some time I have been saying that CCTV is next to useless in the fight against crime and has allowed the police to abjure their responsibilities.

Now, a senior policeman agrees with me. Detective Chief Inspector Mike Neville, the head of the Metropolitan Police Force's Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office, said that the system was an "utter fiasco" - with only 3 per cent of London's street robberies being solved using cameras.

He said, "Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It's been an utter fiasco: only 3 per cent of crimes were solved by CCTV."

Hmm, here's a radical idea - why not police patrols back on the streets?