Get with the times DPP

After all when compared to video footage that was shown in the recent UK riots, this should be encouraged. The UK police searched through thousands of hours of CCTV footage to be able to identify and charge persons. In doing some brief research, video evidence played an important role in the investigation of the murder of two-year-old James Bulger in Liverpool, England as far back as in 1993. A surveillance camera in a shopping mall clearly showed the child being separated from his mother and then being led to his death by the two boys who were later convicted of the killing. The tape was repeatedly shown on television and has helped fix this especially tragic case in the memory of the British public. In another case, video footage from cameras in a West London shopping mall was intensively studied by police to solve a shooting in 1999. Another famous piece of video evidence is the recording of Diana, Princess of Wales, leaving a hotel in Paris just minutes before the car accident that was to end her life in 1997.

In this modern day we should be using the available technologies to catch the criminals. It looks as if the victims have no rights in this place, only the criminals. Do you know how that makes the victims feel that the persons who violated them or killed their family member, get away free and want to now turn around and sue the state for millions. Is that fair? That can’t be fair and just at all.

I remember long ago that wanted persons’ pictures would be on boards at police stations showing the faces of wanted persons. What is so wrong with showing their faces if they have good reason to believe that they have been involved in illegal activities?

So if I have a CCTV camera in my business place and some guys hold me up in it, rob my place, I can’t take that to the media and show it? That is ridiculous. Their faces should be pasted over all television stations.

While I understand that there may be exceptional cases where someone’s identity may be in doubt, we must use every available opportunity to prosecute to the fullest extent possible those who can be identified clearly using the video footage.

If the DPP doesn’t get his act together, Trinidad and Tobago will fall at the hands of the criminals and the DPP in particular will have to carry that on his conscience. Get with the times DPP.

Anne-Marie Redman

Tacarigua