A NEW unit aimed at gathering and using CCTV and pictures to help solve crimes has been officially launched by Barnet police.

The video images identification and detections office (VIIDO) is made up of four PCs and one sergeant, is aimed at gathering and using images more effectively for officers.

They are also responsible for co-ordinating and gathering CCTV and other pictures from places including Barnet Council, shops and even social networking sites.

It is the 18th such unit set up in the Met Police area and yesterday Detective Chief Inspector Mick Nevile, who oversees them all, visited Colindale Police Station to officially launch it.

He told the Times Series: “We need to treat it like forensic discipline, and we've got to recognise it is like DNA in that respect. While fingerprints and DNA can prove people were there, images show what actually happened.

“Partnership is vital. It's easy to think local councils run all the CCTV, but only four per cent on average comes from them, the rest is from places like businesses, shops and things like that.

“When we have decent CCTV evidence 71 per cent of people plead guilty in court, saving the system time and money. It's effective and cheap which is what we need in the current climate.”

Chief Inspector Neil Basu, the borough commander for Barnet, said he hoped his new team, headed up by Sergeant Andrew Heasman, could release other officers to do other jobs.”

Part of the system sees images of suspects in crimes passed around the Met in a Caught on Camera section of the website, which all officers see when He said: “There's an awful lot of debate about the use of CCTV. I'm an absolute believer it's a fantastic crime fighting tool.

“The most important thing for me is to let people know it works. Public perception is these cameras are Big Brother spying on them, but that's not the case.”

Part of the responsibility of the team is to gather CCTV from various sources by learning how to download it and make it ready for court cases.

PC Neil Holding, one of the VIIDO team, said: “There are about 600 different CCTV systems out there which all have different ways of operating, so we're able to gather the images quicker.

“It's a challenge, but it's a good unit and it's a really interesting change.”