CRIMINALS beware! You have been under surveillance for the past year and helping the police with their inquiries.

Closed circuit television has now been in operation for over a year in Skipton town centre and figures show that it has been effective in detecting crime, helping to identify culprits, recording incidents and assisting the police in tracking down criminals.

Over the past 12 months, 31 incidents have been brought to light solely through CCTV, and a further 94 incidents have been detected with its assistance.

The 31 crimes include 26 public order offences, such as fights, urinating in the street and abusive behaviour, one drug incident, and two traffic offences - resulting in 13 arrests.

A further 20 arrests were made using CCTV footage as part of the police inquiry - of these again the vast majority were public order offences.

It is thanks to the hard work of Craven Crime Reduction Partnership that funding was found to make CCTV possible in Skipton.

Now seven cameras survey outside the Town Hall, Cavendish Street, Coach Street, Keighley Road and the four town centre car parks.

They are monitored at a central base in Harrogate, and all the monitoring staff are familiar with Skipton's alleys, street names and 'hot spots'.

And officers at Skipton can now log into the system and, using their own monitor, zoom into problem areas once alerted by Harrogate or a member of the public.

The monitoring personnel can direct police to an incident and the footage can be used in police interviews and in court cases.

Footage is kept for 30 days, unless needed, and its quality has been praised by local area police commander Chief Inspector Nick Smedley.

"There is absolutely no doubt that the system in operation is the best in the force, in terms of quality and the way it is monitored," he said.

"The footage can be used in court cases, and is certainly used a lot in public order cases. It is very difficult to know who was the aggressor etc in a fight outside a pub. It can also be used in an interview."

Alan Atkins, co-ordinator of the Crime Reduction Partnership, said that funding was available at present to keep the system in operation. The council and local businesses were also keen to help with funds.

He added that the system had been so successful he would like to see it introduced at other centres across Craven, such as Settle and Cross Hills.

However Mr Atkins pointed out that this may not be possible due to funding, so the partnership was looking at introducing mobile CCTV which could be used if there was a spate of crimes in a particular area.