CCTV intelligence operator - FT.com Pete Smith, British Transport Police I work in the CCTV Intelligence unit, which was set up in the wake of the July 7 2005 bombings in London. We are based in the centre of the city and our job is to monitor the transport network for anything that might be a policing matter and to gather intelligence for investigations the British Transport Police might conduct. We can access about 33,000 cameras. We are trained in behavioural analysis, so it would be a person's body language or actions that would mark them out to be suspicious. Our work is intelligence-led. For example, we may be alerted to a group of men acting antisocially on a platform. We are then able to find out whereabouts the incident is taking place, zoom in [with our cameras] to take down descriptions of those men and direct British Transport Police officers to the location. It's satisfying being at the front line of policing. We can look at stations across the transport network so it could be anywhere from London to Edinburgh, although there are patterns of crime and places where incidents are more likely . Probably the most difficult things to observe are the fatalities - when people fall accidentally or decide to use the railways to take their lives - that can be very tough. There can be a lighter side too. Halloween is fun - you're looking for something suspicious and then suddenly Scooby Doo pops up.