Met police firearms

[Fedster + 1,307]

Frontline Met Police officers were supposed to have received their cameras by the summer.

A promised record-breaking body worn camera deployment was delayed for months because of problems with IT in older police buildings. 

In October 2016, former Met Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe announced the force would equip 22,000 frontline officers with body worn video (BWV) cameras - the largest deployment in the world.

The scheme was expected to be completed by summer 2017.

But the force was only able to report it had handed out 21,000 of the cameras this week.

A spokesman for Met Police said there had been delays because of issues “working with third party organisations around IT infrastructure in older police buildings.”

Royal and Specialist Protection and Parliamentary Diplomatic Protection Commands will not receive their BWV cameras until early next year because of “challenges” around installing technology into heritage sites, the MPS said.

Project manager Lead Supt Adrian Hutchinson said: “Installing the infrastructure across an organisation of our size and complexity along with the need to coordinate the activities of multiple suppliers took slightly longer than expected." 

In November 2015, the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC), awarded a three-year contract worth £3.4 million to Axon Public Safety UK Limited to supply the Met with 22,000 cameras.

A pilot study, vaunted as the largest of its kind, in November 2015 found 92 per cent of the public agreed BWV improves police accountability. Public complaints against police officers also reduced when BWV cameras were worn, the research concluded.

Met Police Commander Neil Jerome, force lead for BWV, said the technology has been a “game-changer.”

It has “led to improvements across the entire spectrum of policing activity, as seen recently at major incidents such as those at Westminster Bridge and London Bridge,” he said.

“They offer greater transparency for those in front of the camera as well as those behind it.”

The cameras have been given to officers across the 32 boroughs, to officers from the Roads and Transport Policing Command, the Territorial Support Group, Marine Policing Unit, Dog Support Unit, Aviation Policing and Specialist Crime Units.

At the moment, the Met is the only UK force digitally sharing BWV footage with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). 

View On Police Oracle

 

[Indiana Jones + 1,082]

"IT Project in Six Months Delay Shocker - see pages 8 to 10"

Not much of big deal TBH.

Re sharing BWV footage with CPS, what do they mean by sharing? Are they talking about sending the file digitally and not sending it on a disk which is digital?

I thought the issues with sending files was the max file size the CJ system could deal with at their end.

[jamieMET + 121]

Yes, but its just a URL we provide them with to the Axon website specifically for that clip or footage. So no MB limit

[Indiana Jones + 1,082]

Ah ok, so you upload to the BWV manufacturer's own server and they store it oon behalf of the Met. And sending the URL gives them access. A bit like Dropbox and similar things.

Is it also accessible by the defence?

[Techie1 + 2,024]

Wouldn’t the CJS want it on video tape? Or a slide projector? 

Was one of the issues not enough network bandwidth between MPS sites and the outside world? 

[jamieMET + 121]

3 hours ago, Techie1 said:

Wouldn’t the CJS want it on video tape? Or a slide projector? 

Was one of the issues not enough network bandwidth between MPS sites and the outside world? 

 

Stuff like CCTV still has to be provided to the CPS on working discs pre-trial. Thats apparently another legacy project where we will be able to upload it to a cloud system for easier sharing.

 

They have some weird dongle thing which connects to their device by USB and it streams the footage/audio on the disc in their laptop to the flatscreen tvs on the walls in the court room for the session to view.

Remote share? Cant think of what it was called

4 hours ago, Indiana Jones said:

Ah ok, so you upload to the BWV manufacturer's own server and they store it oon behalf of the Met. And sending the URL gives them access. A bit like Dropbox and similar things.

Is it also accessible by the defence?

Exactly that. It’s probably one of the few things that works well. 

 

Yes if its suitable for the MG5, they get a URL too. Our courts are supposed to have been working only digital since April 2016 I think it was. Its funny seeing a dinosaur prosecutor trying to work an iPad or laptop in session.

[bensonby + 3,503]

Click Share. Saw it in action yesterday at Crown Court. Brilliant idea in principle. There were issues with it buffering properly though.

[Beaker 817]

I'm mostly surprised it has taken the CJS until recently to start using this type of technology. It's been mature for 10 years, and setting it up isn't difficult.

[HazRat 762]

In my experience some of the problems associated with large scale rollouts of kit is not listening to the people working at some locations. If, as a project manager you receive an email telling you that a certain building (not Buck house) is going to require consultation and approval then the last thing you do is push it to the end of the queue and then start demanding installation once you realise you’re not going to meet the deadlines. When you don’t own the building you don’t call the shots. Especially not when someone has emails providing that they tried to engage from an early stage and their efforts were rebuffed.

 

(That may or may not have happened in this case. Names have been changed to protect the innocent).

 

I’m sure I’ll see BWV at some point next year.

[jamieMET + 121]

2 hours ago, bensonby said:

Click Share. Saw it in action yesterday at Crown Court. Brilliant idea in principle. There were issues with it buffering properly though.

Thats it, thanks. It wasn’t perfect, and the prosecutor didnt have a clue which didnt help either. The clerk was pretty anti for some reason and I found myself having to lead the technology which was key for a successful prosecution 

[JulietAlpha1 + 515]

11 hours ago, jamieMET said:

Stuff like CCTV still has to be provided to the CPS on working discs pre-trial. Thats apparently another legacy project where we will be able to upload it to a cloud system for easier sharing.

It’s not a formal procedure, however, you can actually upload CCTV video files to evidence.com and treat them exactly like BWV (I.e. mark them as evidential, clip them, and share them CPS via a URL.)

I did it a couple of times for jobs and it worked really well because the ERO/CPS could watch the CCTV for charging advice and at any point pre-trial, so they had the full picture. It also allowed you to link it to the CRIS so investigators had access to a working copy without having to store discs or go to stores and book out master copies.

I tried telling people about it to help them and get it around but people didn’t care and it was never picked up by anybody higher up.

[jamieMET + 121]

On 14/12/2017 at 11:32, JulietAlpha1 said:

It’s not a formal procedure, however, you can actually upload CCTV video files to evidence.com and treat them exactly like BWV (I.e. mark them as evidential, clip them, and share them CPS via a URL.)

I did it a couple of times for jobs and it worked really well because the ERO/CPS could watch the CCTV for charging advice and at any point pre-trial, so they had the full picture. It also allowed you to link it to the CRIS so investigators had access to a working copy without having to store discs or go to stores and book out master copies.

I tried telling people about it to help them and get it around but people didn’t care and it was never picked up by anybody higher up.

Fantastic 

 

Would you be so kind as to explain how you got the footage from the disc or usb and on evidence.com?

[JulietAlpha1 + 515]

17 minutes ago, jamieMET said:

Fantastic 

 

Would you be so kind as to explain how you got the footage from the disc or usb and on evidence.com?

On evidence.com, one of the tabs at the top says Upload. Click on that and when the screen opens there’s a drag and drop box. Just pop your disc or USB in and drag the video files over. Choose your evidential/non evidential and title it then click upload. When it’s done it’ll appear on your video list with all your BWV and you can manage it exactly the same as your BWV.

[Phil + 33]

1 hour ago, JulietAlpha1 said:

On evidence.com, one of the tabs at the top says Upload. Click on that and when the screen opens there’s a drag and drop box. Just pop your disc or USB in and drag the video files over. Choose your evidential/non evidential and title it then click upload. When it’s done it’ll appear on your video list with all your BWV and you can manage it exactly the same as your BWV.

And we are allowed to do this? Genuine question. Didn’t know the system had this feature. 

[jamieMET + 121]

Neither did I! This could save me so much hassle

 

I’ll get onto my local spoc and mention it in the next pathfinder meeting