CCTV as a risk management tool – A case study

On Monday morning, 15th July, we arrived at work to find that part of our signage had been stolen off the front of our building. It was not only the loss of the sign that frustrated me but as so often happens the cost of repairing the damage, here the wiring to the led lights that back lit the sign would be more than the sign itself. This was not a sign on the footpath as our building is set well back from the main street with an 8 car car park in between us and the footpath.

Having lived in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea as a chartered loss adjuster for 3 years, I take security very seriously and the current law and order problems in Melbourne have only raised my views on the importance of safety and security for both people and property.

From when we moved into our building in 2000 we installed bars on most of the windows and those that face the street we installed burglar proof film. We also have security lighting on 2 sides and sensor lights on the car park facing the main street.

In addition to this, we have high resolution closed circuit television (“CCTV”) cameras facing in both directions on all sides of the building, the roof and in all common areas of the interior. This has been updated twice to keep pace with improvements in technology. The cost of the improved camera system being significantly less than the original analogue one.

On noticing the theft with the first person arriving at the office, our head of LMI Media ran through the video footage and saw exactly what had happened. Three men, not teenagers but 3 mature men, had attended a restaurant 2 doors up from our building. They walked into our car park and while 2 of them used the car park as a urinal, the third walked up and ripped the sign off the building. They then waited for an Uber, a Jeep Patriot, the registration number of which we recorded and then drove off.

The use of our car park as a toilet was a second surprise for us and something we could not understand when the restaurant has excellent facilities.

As the man walked up to the building, the three men all looked up at the strong flood lights which were activated by their movement and without realising it, the cameras captured high quality images of their faces and in the case of 2 of them, much more than their faces.

Once we had the images we started our own inquires to discover their identity. This included a Facebook post with their images. This was quickly shared by friends and I thank those that helped here. The post was also shared on Neighbourhood watch and like social media pages.

I also started to make my own inquiries and within only a few minutes had the mobile number, email address and full name of one of the men involved. Armed with this information, the identity was checked by looking at the person’s own Facebook page and confirmed to be the same individual.

I therefore rang him and walked him through exactly what had happened.

To say he was mortified is an understatement. He has agreed to return the sign and being an electrician agreed to refit it properly along with an apology. Hopefully he is as good as his word.

While he claims to be an electrician he appears to be a self employed plasterer.

How to ruin your reputation – who would want any trade in your house that treats other people’s property like he and his ‘friends’ had, remembering the old adage: “birds of a feather flock together”.

So now to the lessons learned.

1. CCTV is a great risk management measure.
   While many of our neighbours have been the victim of graffiti we have only had 2 tags in 20 years. We always paint them out the day we see them.
2. CCTV not only reduces crime, it helps capture criminals.
   Footage from our CCTV has helped Police apprehend 3 gangs of thieves targeting neighbours’ property, assisted Police to track down a neighbour’s teenage daughter who ran away from home, and scared off 2 teenagers who had been setting fires in an underneath carpark of a neighbours building.
   As soon as we put up their photos in 18 businesses along the street and in the underground carpark they never returned. It also helped to identify a driver involved in a hit and run in our car park where they caused over $4,000 damage on a parked car.
3. There is no use having good quality cameras and skimping on the storage.
   I have seen many times this happen and then when you go to look at the footage it is so grainy it is next to useless.
4. Cameras today are dirt cheap.
5. Cameras do not only help with burglary and malicious damage matters but fire, public liability, WorkCover and embezzlement issues.
6. I do think that CCTV is not just for businesses but for homes and that dash cams, front and back are a necessity.
7. On the other side of the coin, if you are contemplating committing a crime, doing something stupid or the like, take a second to think do I want my image posted all over social media, or worse the news. As the use of CCTV becomes more and more widespread the chance of being caught red handed is nearly certain. Just look at the morning news feed on television any day of the week.

I now wait and see if the person responsible that I rang is as good as his word and our sign is reinstated.

PS. As I write this article I received a call from the Neil Mitchell program on 3AW and I am to be interviewed at either 9:30am or 10:30am today, 17 July 2019. I will post a link to the podcast for those that are interested.