Give coppers the X-ray cameras of tellyland and crack crime for good

Fantasy and reality screened either side of the ten O’Clock news, starting with The

Capture (BBC1) and its vision of a surveillance police state where everyone is watched all the time.

In this paranoid thriller, CCtV cameras using facial recognition tech can find you among ten million people in London, within a matter of seconds.

It’s no good trying to run — every customer in every coffee shop could be a plain clothes detective and every cabbie could be an MI5 agent. But the depressing facts of real life soon surfaced, in documentary Canny Cops (BBC1) 90 minutes later that followed the labours of northumbria’s outnumbered bobbies.

In a house well-known as a drug dealers’ haunt, the coppers found a stolen motorbike. the residents were hauled in, questioned, held overnight and released without charge — for lack of evidence. apparently, there wasn’t enough proof that any crime had been committed.

What I can’t fathom is, if known criminals can nick Kawasakis and ride up and down the High street waving lit spliffs, and the police are powerless to stop them, how come Britain is simultaneously one of the most watched countries in the world, with an estimated five million spy cameras? Ignore the sheer

too paranoid. Lacking these resources, the Durham Constabulary resorted to less costly methods in Canny Cops.

One senior officer wrote a heartfelt birthday card for a local troublemaker called shauna, wishing her many happy returns . . . but not to his cells.

the problem was, shauna enjoyed all the attention. she didn’t mind if the fuzz battered on her front door at the unearthly hour of 9.30am, so long as they played along with her banter at the station.

But she didn’t like it when her boyfriend addressed a friendly remark to a young female special constable. shauna fetched him such a slap round the head, you could hear his teeth rattling. surveillance cameras are no use against an anti-social nuisance like that. they made more difference as police investigated a pub brawl that left a man with a head like a split pumpkin.

His assailants were arrested, thanks to the video — and lucky for them, because the victim’s mother was spitting flames.

‘I’d like to bounce their heads off the pavement,’ she raged, before reminiscing about the good old days when whole villages would get together for a scrap once a week.

nobody got badly hurt, she insisted, and all was peaceful for the rest of the week.

they probably even sent each other birthday cards.