If they are switched on, pointing in the right direction, in focus, and recording.

My youngest daughter (21) was knocked down, punched and kicked by a group of four men outside a large night club in the centre of Leeds about 9 months ago, she had just exited the club looking for her taxi which was supposed to be waiting outside, luckily a bouncer saw what happened, ran over and chased the males off before it got too serious (black eyes and swollen cheekbones nevertheless, she was lucky).

We persuaded her to report the incident to the police the next day and on the Monday they went to the club to collect their cctv, it was not pointing towards the incident, they then contacted the council for their street cctv, it was faulty that night, so they finally interviewed the nightclub staff and the bouncer who witnessed everything - he did not want to give a statement.

Written off as #happens, the police were very good though and apologised to her for not being able to do more, as were their follow-up Victims of Crime councillors.

A very loose description JC.

Anything else would have been auto-corrected



She was just unlucky, wrong place, wrong time and with the nature of city centre's like Leeds these days its very likely that the group were not even from the city, had the police had cctv they may not have been "the usual suspects" and could have come from anywhere in the country for a saturday night in Leeds - the only affective thing that could have happened was for her to agree to the bouncers request to call the police, she didn't because she just wanted to get home, if the police had attended immediately then the bouncer may have given a statement (strange how he changed his mind 48 hours later) and they may have been able to tour the streets looking for them.

You live and learn though.

I've debated recently with you with about Savile's offences and said that if I was on the jury in those offences I would have said not guilty, just based on the account of the accuser.

Based on your account, and accepting that everything said in it being true, if those were the facts in court before me I'd want every one of them sent to jail.

I don't think it is that today's culture is accepting of 4 men beating a woman. I don't think any cop would see the crime as not worthy of response. I think a cop would just look at the difficulties in following up and making a case would mean that thousands of hours of police work would be needed and the prospect of any conviction is close to zero from the very start.

I hope your daughter is ok. I hope she's got over that attack completely. I hope that she was compensated by the criminal injuries board for what happened (although I think the likelihood of that is zero too because there was no conviction).

No, she got a good follow up call from the police, they told her everything they'd done and they did everything they could in the circumstances and they apologised for not being able to do more but told her they'd be closing the case although the crime was still logged as an incident, its not the first and won't be the last such incident around The Calls on a weekend and hopefully those stats will be considered when the council come to renew licences or allocate funding for cctv repairs.

She was fine within a week, just lots of bruises, one of them punched her in the face & knocked her to the ground and the rest piled in with punches and a couple of kicks, completely random and for no reason, they were not in the club and she had just walked out as her taxi was arriving, her phone was in her hand and she had a bag with money but nothing was stolen, the motive was just, what the hell, who knows what the motive was.

She doesn't go into Leeds now but hangs around Headingley instead although just a couple of months ago two guys pulled a knife on her and two friends after they were trying to stop them beating up a lad in another random attack, in that case she was the only one who insisted on the shop proprietor in who's take-away it took place calling the police and she gave a statement and insisting that the police report it properly as the lad who had been beaten up just wanted to get a taxi home, there's been no follow up to that one.

Which is why I've suggested that it should be installed in every single home in the country – it would be a massive help in tackling rape, child abuse and domestic violence.

Indeed. There need to be multiple cameras in every room, as well as infra red cameras so that nothing is missed in darkness. In fact, we just need the Big Brother technicians to be awarded the contract to CCTV all domestic premises, get G4S to hire 2 million people to monitor all cams 24/7, and not only are all those offences eliminated, you also solve unemployment at a stroke.

It's win-win, as far as I can see

And you get Channel 5 to broadcast it all. The viewer can change which household they're watching via the red button.

I hadn't considered the boost to the national economy – good call.

I think (most of or all) those countries also have a written constitution (which we do not), enshrining their civil rights and protecting the population against many abuses.

Try and imagine what it would be like here if, say, you looked a bit like an immigrant, (you know, a bit suspiciously brown or wearing a shalwar kameez or a burquah) you'd be having to step aside and produce your card multiple times a day.

Bear in mind that the 7/11 London bombers were all legal citizens, the 9/11 hijackers all had the correct paperwork ... having the right ID wouldn't have made the slightest difference to the crimes.

Does shower time for my mates 18 year old daughter across the road count, are we censorship well and truly free?