8:36am Monday 21st January 2008
By Philip Hennessey
A VICAR is hoping to catch criminals who steal from his church in the comfort of his own home.
The Rev Adam Friend, from St Chad's Church, has a state of the art surveillance system which he hopes has captured criminals trying to steal lead from the church roof.
Despite the criminals failing in their attempt to steal the lead more than £8,000 worth of damage was caused and Mr Friend is now trawling through hours of footage.
He said: "We have a security system with 10 CCTV cameras filming 24 hours with special night vision for when it goes dark.
"We have a three day period when it took place so it is now a case of me going through all the footage."
Thanks to new technology does not even have to leave his armchair at home to keep an eye on his church.
He said: "This system is so good that I can watch live footage from any of the cameras by logging onto the Internet at home.
"It is fantastic technology and even though it is expensive it protects the church very well.
"In this case someone removed the lead but didn't manage to steal it, possibly because it was too heavy for them to lift.
"We still have the lead itself but because of the way it is layed it is useless which means we need to have the roof done again which will cost a lot of money and it is money that we can't really afford."
Mr Friend hopes the security system will prevent other people from commiting crime at the church.
He said: "The cameras pick up any movement within 30 metres of the church.
"They are vandal proof and the images are stored on an external hard drive.
"If anyone does commit a crime near the church whether it is a theft or vandalism then they will be caught on camera."
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