Police resources "stretched" without an editor...

Hampshire police's CCTV unit is up for a

BAFTA for 'best lighting on a speeding ticket'

Hampshire police has been criticised for having the entire Petersfield allocation of officers seconded to a CCTV speed camera team on the B2070 (Petersfield to Liss road) today.

A spokesman for Petersfield Residents Against Things (PRATS) was incandescent with rage.

He said: “I’m incandescent with rage … at least that’s what I think I am. I’m sure I remember reading it somewhere. I’m not happy anyway. There were two vehicles at the Liss turning from London Road today … TWO! They were filming drivers of all things.

“Yet just a couple of miles away in Petersfield young people were dropping litter, wearing their trousers halfway down their backsides and laughing. What’s more Costa was charging in excess of £3 for a coffee. These are despicable acts. Why aren’t the police here targeting such wanton acts of criminality?”

A spokeswoman for Hampshire Constabulary confirmed all six officers scheduled to appear in Petersfield at any given time over the next decade were indeed working with the CCTV unit. But she denied it was a waste of valuable police resources.

“These are necessary staffing levels for the job these officers were required to do,” she said sheepishly. “It’s not just a case of having a driver and a cameraman in the CCTV van; you also need a director, a lighting engineer, a runner and a grip – whatever one of those is.

“That’s all six east Hampshire officers. We couldn’t stretch to an editor or costumier, so have been forced to make do. Residents should be grateful that the officers they have within their community are so multi-skilled. They might not catch many criminals but when they are captured on film, the lighting and production techniques are second to none.”

Nothing to see here…

The job involves monitoring all CCTV

cameras but also includes a full Sky

Movies and Sports package

Petersfield’s CCTV camera system has been temporarily shut down – following the tragic death of a Big Brother-style monitor.

Tom P Ping died of boredom after literally nothing happened for nearly TWO YEARS.

He had worked in the monitoring office of Petersfield Spyware - the privatised company which runs the service on behalf of our police state - since 2007 and doctors say he simply couldn't take the tedium any longer.

Ping, 43, and getting no older, spent eight hours a day observing what was going on by watching a bank of screens covering all 9,327 of the town's CCTV cameras. It was his responsibility to notify community busybodies of any untoward activities but unfortunately excitement was at a premium.

However, the expensive camera system was defended by Petersfield Spyware’s managing director Mr V Oya, who said: “There was an incident involving a cat and a milk bottle early on in his stint, which kept him occupied for 30 seconds or so.

“And there was that time when a street lamp went out on the Herne Farm estate and he managed to alert Southern Electric, narrowly averting a minor annoyance for several residents.

“He also spent quite a long time monitoring the back garden of a former Miss Petersfield, Vera Milf, during this summer's two-day hot spell.”

There is now a vacancy for a monitor with a very high boredom threshold or an extremely inquisitive nature.

Oya added: “Basically, we're looking for a nosey bastard.”