LONDON'S MOST SECRET JOB?

Name: Mark Foulkes

Age: 28 Job title: Communication Centre Operator with City of London Police, monitoring and responding to police CCTVs in the City.

What does your job involve?

Working with another colleague, we check 53 monitors in our operational support department for traffic offences and crime surveillance. We work closely with police passing on information.

Isn't that a lot of monitors? You get used to it. If you're following a car on a regular route, for example, you usually know what camera to look at next.

Any extra skills needed? It helps to have good hand-eye co- ordination.

How does your system work? There are 11 points of entry into the City and CCTV cameras photograph the number plate of every car arriving, plus front seat passengers. It gives us a security record and helps with stolen vehicles.

How else does CCTV help? After a number of computer burglaries in the City recently, plain clothes officers followed some suspects but lost them.

Soon after, a CCTV camera spotted them breaking into a shop and action was taken, leading to arrest.

Is it stressful? Having to watch more than one screen at the same time has its moments. Recently we had two firearms incidents at different ends of the City which had to be precisely monitored. We do have regular breaks.

Isn't it a huge responsibility? Ye s , because CCTV films are often used in court. But there's always a police sergeant or inspector present to advise.

Has The Bill got it right, then? A lot of our work is just patient observation and analysis, which doesn't make good TV.

Any frustrations? We can't always act on minor traffic offences, like driving the wrong way down one-way streets. But we see it all.

What's the strangest incident you've seen? A City men's shop refusing to give a customer a refund for a suit, so he took all his clothes off on the pavement. We had to send someone round to deal with it.

What makes your day? Making a difference and the excitement of helping to solve offences and crimes.

Do you ever feel like Big Brother?

No, never. Our cameras are stuck on 40 foot high poles, so it's all very overt not covert. It's not as if we're secretly filming. CCTV acts as a deterrent although 99 per cent of people are law- abiding.

We open up our operation to the media and public for viewing.

Does CCTV work? Crime levels in the City are 20 per cent below what they they were 10 years ago. It also makes police officers' work safer.

What's your next career move? I'd like to become a police officer. At the moment I work in the civilian division.

Salary? GBP 24,000 - GBP 25,000.

Can you switch off after work? I try to, but still find myself looking out for suspicious cars.

Like? That's confidential....

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