IN A NON-DESCRIPT building at South Gosforth Metro station just outside Newcastle upon Tyne, Kevin Rowland is looking at a video monitor which is displaying four camera shots of another Metro station. Three of the images are unremarkable - scenes of a deserted platform and ticket machine area. The fourth image on the screen simply consists of a purple swirly blur. "Kids have spray-painted the camera," says Rowland, a senior engineer with SDA-Protec, the contractor that has installed the Metro's new CCTV system. "They sneak up underneath it and then give it a quick spray, thinking that they can't be seen." From a review workstation he accesses the station's digital recording server and rewinds the recorded images from the camera in question to the point just before it was sprayed. "Ah, here we are." Rowland plays back the recorded images of four cameras simultaneously On one camera located in the ticket booth, two shifty youths in beany hats and sweatshirts can be clearly seen entering the station. The other three cameras show the empty platform. For a few seconds the two boys are out of view before one of the images on the screen suddenly disappears in a purple mist as the spray paint is released. A couple of minutes later another camera detects the lads boarding a train - then rapidly exiting it when a ticket inspector follows them in. They leave the station.
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