BOURNEMOUTH has led the way in the past 25 years or so when it comes to CCTV technology.

The town was the first to introduce an urban network of closed circuit security cameras back in the 1980s and attracted a fair amount of publicity.

Now the system has been upgraded with 30 new Predators, which look like something out of a movie – hence their name presumably.

The details of what they do and how they do it are contained in the news story on page 2. But their arrival is bound to spark some debate on the rights and wrongs of the surveillance state – the stuff of countless conspiracy theories. Some people object to the fact that they are caught on camera pretty much wherever they go in towns and cities these days.

Others take the view, as we do, that they are a deterrent to crime and a big help in detecting it. If you aren’t doing anything wrong, you’ve got nothing to worry about.