What should CCTV watch?

On Thursday my wife drove into Oswestry where we collected my daughter from her home, and then went into the town centre where two of us needed to go to our respective banks.

Then it was off to Wrexham for a shopping trip. Then we went to Cheshire Oaks at Ellesmere Port where we lunched and completed the shopping. I used one of the loos in Cheshire Oaks.

Now I don't expect any of this has set your pulses racing, and I mention it only in the context that during this routine expedition, according to a recent article in The Times, my family and I will have been photographed on CCTV roughly 360 times.

This makes us, to our eternal shame and probably eventually to our damnation, the most spied upon nation on the planet. My visit to the men's room is on film in Cheshire.

In the meantime, a British Airways Boeing 777 was on final approach to Heathrow, when both engines failed causing it to crash just short of the runway.

Nobody appears to have considered this near-tragedy worth filming. In the aftermath of the Concord tragedy of July 2000, when the aircraft crashed after colliding with debris on the runway in Paris, the only film came from a driver.

At the time many aviation experts called for full CCTV surveillance of all airliner take-offs and landings, which are the points in the flight most likely to give trouble.

Seven years on, and still the CCTV enthusiasts are apparently more interested in watching people shopping than in collecting evidence that could prove crucial in preventing repetitions of a tragedy.

It's time these voyeurs got their priorities sorted.

Sam Evans, Oswestry