More CCTV snooping into homes

Last month RINF editor, Mick Meaney, revealed how CCTV camera operators had been spying on London residents. Today John Coles highlights the same problem in Cardiff.

JOHN COLES

SECURITY men guarding a top government building SPIED on private homes and hotel rooms.

The Peeping Toms were supposed to be keeping their high-powered cameras trained on the Welsh Assembly complex in Cardiff. But five used the CCTV gear to zoom in on luxury flats and a posh hotel nearby.Their targets included the waterfront development where singer Charlotte Church used to live and where Welsh soccer boss John Toshack and opera singer Bryn Terfel have apartments.

The snoopers were caught during a check by managers. The bosses then sparked a row by letting them keep their jobs after giving them formal warnings.

Tory Welsh Assembly member Jonathan Morgan said: “This is absolutely disgraceful. I would expect people in these circumstances to have been sacked not given a warning.

“The police should have been called in immediately.”

A host of cameras — some disguised as lights — are rigged up around the Cardiff Bay HQ of the Welsh Assembly.

Officials confirmed the cameras had been “turned towards private dwellings” and guards had been “misusing CCTV equipment”.

Mr Morgan added: “The privileges of MI5 or MI6 to spy on people do not extend to security guards in Cardiff Bay.”

One woman living in Sovereign Quay, where Church lived until two years ago, said: “It makes your skin crawl that some stranger could have been zooming into your bedroom like that.”

An Assembly spokeswoman said: “These were isolated incidents.”

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