CCTV cameras 'fully functional', say police

CCTV cameras in Umina are "fully functional", according to Brisbane Water police, despite one camera being out of action at the time of the fire at tattoo parlour on May 29.

"There is no issue with the CCTV cameras down there," said Brisbane Water Local Area Command crime coordinator, Detective Senior Sergeant Vivienne Crawford.

"When cameras go down or there's a fault with them, we get them repaired," she said.

Ms Crawford said faults occurred only occasionally.

"It's not like they're going down every week.

"From time to time the cameras go down, sometimes it can be the weather but that's beyond our control and we just get the experts in to fix them," she said.

"We're monitoring them but were not monitoring them 24-seven.

"They're tools used solely to assist police with their investigations, that's all.

"We're not there to be security," she said.

Ms Crawford said that one of the cameras wasn't working at the time of the incident on May 29, but that it wasn't an issue.

"When they've gone back to have a look, they found one of the cameras hadn't recorded, but there are a number of cameras down there and only one of them was out of action," she said.

"There was a witness and other exterior evidence.

"The police were down there shortly after, located the offender and arrested the person," she said.

Kaitlin Watts, 9 Jun 2011 Interviewee: Vivienne Crawford, Brisbane Water LAC