Watch: Hampshire Constabulary talk about their journey with Reveal


Keith Haywood from Hampshire Constabulary talks about their journey with the Reveal body camera solution

"We started using cameras in late 2008/ early 2009 in various different forms of trial cameras. Around about 2010/2011 we ended up with some home office funding, and that was around the time we bought into [Reveal] with Carma and the original RS2 cameras. From then on we moved in 2013 to then be rolling out more cameras with the RS3 and Operation Hyperion where we went personal issue on the Isle of Wight for a year with the Porstmouth study.

"Roughly we have in force around 2700 cameras, although we're not at full deployment as of yet. We have around 1000 personaly issued cameras. To officers on the streets, they like the cameras because it helps them with rergards to complaints and the reduction of complaints against themselves, it helps with the legitimacy with what they're saying and it's like their independant witness. Especially where officers are being sent to incidents where they are single crewed, it's very good for them from a personal safety point of view, if anything does happen then that camera captures what's going on.

"[body worn video makes a difference] in domestic violence, and certianly victimless prosecutions. We've had some good victimless prosectutions where people don't want to give us a full statement but they've actually disclosed on body worn video what's happened. The Crown Prosecution Service have said to charge an offender which we have done and then they've used the body worn video footage for part of that prosecution, even though it wasn't supported by the victim.

"Having a screen on the camera is good because it allows us to review footage when needed. It's good for suspects knowing that they're being recorded, which can bring their level right down and if they're confrontational and they know they're being recorded it can sometimes calm them down and/or make them dissapear. [The articulated head] can be good for tall officers, smaller officers so they can angle it depending on who they're dealing with. The big red slider, the officers like that, it's nice and easy and you get the double beep to know it's recording. It's much more easy than some other cameras.

"We have [DEMS] at the moment on client machines as a hybrid solution, so we're using network area storage at Stations with client machines. However moving forward we're going to a cloud based storage solution with Azure and we will be utilising Web DEMS... so officers dock the camera and the footage will go and be stored in the cloud and then use Web DEMS across the force for anyone who needs to view the footage.

"Personally I think it's a very good piece of kit for officers if used correctly. Officer education is key at getting a good product at the end, and we need to make sure officers are trained well in the use, not just of the camera, but the back end software to make sure that the procedures are followed... so you get a better end product.

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