The nail bomb explosion at Tipton Mosque this summer shocked the local community and the rest of the UK. Thankfully, due to CCTV images, a Ukrainian student, who is now in custody, was identified as the likely mastermind behind the attack. These crucial images were captured on cameras supplied by Oprema to T&S solutions in the West Midlands.
Due to the ongoing nature of the investigation little information has been released to date. However, we are led to believe that cameras situated close to the mosque showed a person of interest on the footage they provided. The suspect, Pavlo Lapshyn, is also under arrest for other offences related to bombings and a murder enquiry.
Supt. Edwards, who led the investigation for West Midlands Police, revealed to local press that CCTV was invaluable in securing an arrest by saying, “This was a challenging investigation: Lapshyn was a loner who had only been in the country a matter of days before his first attack and so wasn’t known in the community where he lived and worked.
“However, through exhaustive CCTV trawls, telecoms and financial investigations, and painstaking forensic searches of the explosion sites we were able to get a clear picture of Lapshyn’s offences and pin him down.”
Mr Steve Croot, owner of T&S Solutions, said that it wasn’t unusual to receive requests from the police to retrieve CCTV footage but “when you realise the severity of the incident you appreciate just how essential our industry is. Without the CCTV footage positively identifying the man acting suspiciously by the mosque he would never have been connected with the other incidents and would still be free to carry out his campaign of terror”.
Regional West Midlands newspaper, Express & Star, have recently published a story almost four months on from the attack. The online article reports that security measures have now been stepped up through increased police patrols and, more importantly for the security industry, the installation of speed dome cameras. And despite the ever prevalent social concern of ‘Big Brother’ surveillance, public response to the article indicates a positive reaction to the installation of the new cameras.
The events that unfolded in July and the recent public response to the added security measures delineate how important CCTV surveillance is. If T&S Solutions hadn’t installed quality cameras – supplied by Oprema – Pavlo Lapshyn would never have been identified and linked to multiple criminal incidents.
