Scotland Yard today announced that 21,000 front-line officers have been given body-worn cameras — the largest deployment of its kind in the world.
The capital’s Metropolitan Police confirmed it was nearing completion of a £10 million year-long scheme to roll out the camera across the force.
The project is designed to increase public trust in the police and, today, mounted police officers were being equipped with the devices.
It comes as the force revealed figures showing that there were 3,515 complains against officers in the year up to October 2017.
The capital’s Metropolitan Police confirmed it was nearing completion of a £10 million year-long scheme to roll out the camera across the force
onstable Yasa Amerat and Constable Craig Pearson wearing their body-worn video cameras. The Met hope the project will increase the public’s trust in the police
This was a fall of 22 per cent compared to the previous 12 months, during which there were 4,501 complaints.
Commander Neil Jerome, who is spearheading the roll-out of the body-cams, said: ‘Clearly it is difficult to attribute this reduction entirely to body-worn video but we know it is leading to a reduction in complaints, which is good news.
‘These cameras give us quality evidence immediately and allow us to capture a victim’s account with all its emotion and context.’
The cameras will also be given to a final 1,000 officers from the Met Police’s royalty, specialist and diplomatic protection commands early next year.
The force said more than 1.6 million videos have been recorded since it began rolling out the cameras, and now submits 4,500 clips to the CPS each month
Chief Inspector Neil Sawyer, PC Green and PC Mohammed Azir pose wearing body-worn cameras at Brixton Police Station. A further 535,000 clips have been retained for evidential and policing purposes
The force say a delay in the role-out has been caused by difficulties relating to installing the devices at sites including Buckingham Palace.
Body-worn cameras were crucial during the terror attacks at Westminster and London Bridge, Mr Jerome said, helping to identify attackers and establishing the threat had been eliminated.
The force said more than 1.6 million videos have been recorded since it began rolling out the cameras, and now submits 4,500 clips to the CPS each month.
A total of 535,000 videos have been retained for ‘evidential or policing purposes’ to boot.
Sophie Linden, deputy mayor for policing and crime, said: ‘Body-worn video is a huge step forward in bringing our capital’s police force into the 21st century.
‘From training new recruits to scrutinising stop and search, body-worn video is being used in a range of different ways by our police officers.
However, Renate Samson, of Big Brother Watch, told the Evening Standard: ‘We keep hearing from police forces that body-worn video is brilliant but we have asked police forces for information to support this and not one could give data to show, for instance, that it is increasing the number of convictions.’