Thousands of Metropolitan police to be equipped with body-worn cameras
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Version 0 of 1. Thousands of frontline officers in the Metropolitan police will be equipped with body-worn cameras over the coming months. Scotland Yard said body-worn video (BWV) will be issued to more than 22,000 Met officers across London’s 32 boroughs and to a number of frontline specialist roles, including overt firearms officers, from Monday. The deployment will be phased in and is expected to be complete by next summer, the Met said. It had initially planned to issue officers with the cameras earlier this year. Met commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe was due to be joined in Lewisham by London mayor Sadiq Khan for the roll-out of the cameras following a trial, public consultation and academic evaluation. The force said the cameras have already shown that they can help bring about speedier justice for victims, and have been particularly successful in domestic abuse cases, where there has been an increase in guilty pleas from offenders who know their actions have been recorded. Scotland Yard said: “The technology offers greater transparency for those in front of the camera as well as behind it. “Londoners can feel reassured during their interactions with the police, whilst allowing us to demonstrate the professionalism of our officers in their many challenging and contentious interactions, such as the use of stop and search.” The cameras will be attached to officers’ uniforms and will not be permanently recording. Police said members of the public will be told as soon as practicable that they are being recorded, and when the camera is recording it is very obvious – marked by a flashing red circle in the centre of the camera and a frequent beeping noise when it is activated. Hogan-Howe said: “Body-worn video will support our officers in the many challenging situations they have to deal with, at the same time as building the public’s confidence. What we do every day will be seen by the public – that has to be good. “Our experience of using cameras already shows that people are more likely to plead guilty when they know we have captured the incident on a camera. That then speeds up justice, puts offenders behind bars more quickly and most importantly protects potential victims. “Video captures events in a way that can’t be represented on paper in the same detail, a picture paints a thousand words, and it has been shown the mere presence of this type of video can often defuse potentially violent situations without the need for force to be used.” Khan said the technology brings the police force “into the 21st century”. In November 2015, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime awarded a three-year contract worth £3.4m to Axon Public Safety UK to supply the Met with 22,000 cameras. Last month, a study by the University of Cambridge found a 93% decrease in complaints made against officers clearly wearing body cameras. |