A TEENAGE boy caught on CCTV has been successfully prosecuted for setting fire to a Nottingham City Transport bus seat.
This along with other cases demonstrates the success of the CCTV which is being installed on all Nottingham Transport Company (NCT) buses as part of the city’s Respect for Transport campaign.
Footage of the 16-year-old, from Clifton, who set fire to a seat on the 48 Service, was shown at the launch of the Respect for Transport campaign in the Galleries of Justice last summer.
Recently, thanks to co-operation between NCT and the police, the youth was recognised and arrested for arson. He appeared before Nottingham magistrates on March 31 2005 and pleaded guilty. He was fined £100 with £40 costs and was also ordered to pay £140 compensation to NCT.
In a separate case, NCT said that CCTV on a bus has captured evidence of a 13-year-old boy who use his Scholar’s Pass to board the vehicle and then defecated on a bus seat.
He was arrested on March 27 2005 and granted bail but is due to return to police on April 16.
Mark Fowles, managing director for NCT, said: “We are delighted that the excellent quality of our CCTV footage is now assisting in the prosecution of passengers who act in an anti-social manner on our buses. We now have 100 buses fitted with CCTV cameras and the footage they are providing is invaluable in police cases and insurance claim validations”
He continued “NCT plan to have CCTV cameras on all their buses by 2008 and continue to work with the Respect for Transport partnership to clamp down on this unacceptable behaviour from a few passengers who can make travelling so unpleasant for others.”
Vandalism and graffiti on NCT buses costs more than £100,000 per annum to rectify. To help combat the problem, the company is installing CCTV on all of its 320 buses at a cost of £1,225,000.
This is just one of many initiatives to stamp out violence and anti-social behaviour across Nottingham’s public transport system as part of the Respect for Transport campaign, which is backed by Nottingham City Council, NCT, NET, and JC Decaux
ENDS
For more information contact Nicola Tidy at NCT on (0115) 9766 718 or e-mail nicola.tidy@nctx.co.uk
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