Hidden camera found. What to do?

[trirose]

My daughter’s friend has just found a hidden camera attached to a power bank in her bedroom. She shares a house with others from uni. What should she do immediately? Trying to prevent mistakes so that they can find the fuc*er who planted it.

But it's not a crime in progress where the offender is in situ. It's not a situation where there is a description of the offender or a car registration to trace the offender. It's a matter for specialist police to trace the person responsible so no immediate arrest is possible. It's not a 999 call. At this point I am giving up. No wonder the police are stretched. ( and, yes, I spent 5 years in a police control room, dealing with calls)

Yep 👏🏻

For fucks sake why are you all arguing on mumsnet about it. She's either called 101 or 999 by now.

Both have call handlers capable of triaging and prioritising.

More to the point, I hope she and he housemates have turned the entire property inside out checking for any other devices.

Just another thought - get her to get in contact with her student union, and see if they are able to offer any help. If nothing else, they should be made aware of the incident in case they get reports of it happening to anybody else.

@trirose I hope your daughter is safe? Did the police come to help her?
What a very horrible and scary thing to happen. So violating and she must have felt/feel so unsafe in her own room. I hope she is ok. And you.
I hope they can catch who planted this. I know this thread seems to have turned into an argument but if you were able to update I hope you do.
If this kind of thing is happening now I think it's good to be aware so we can be vigilant. If you don't feel able to post, of course I would understand that too.
My Care to her and you.

If the police can send someone to arrest someone while they commit the crime call 999. If they can send someone to investigate a crime, call 101.

The number you call depends on the emergency of the case, not the gravity.

I am baffled at so many people not understanding that. No wonder so much police time gets wasted.

Didn’t she clock that there was a powerbank there that didn’t belong to her? If it was hers surely she’d be using it regularly?

The perpetrator will know he/she has been found out surely ?
The OP hasn’t come back.

I'm astounded too.

Its not that bloody hard to understand.

The people saying ' FFS what does it matter' are just as bad.

Its not hard to understand why it matters that people know when to phone 999 and 101. The emergency services have invested time and effort into getting people to understand because it matters so much. 101 was invented because it matters so much.

Doubt the op @trirose will after the ridiculous arguing about the police phone numbers to call. Some people can’t just shut up and have to be right/argue till the cows come home.

You’re right @PrioritisePleasure24

Is the definition of ridiculous:

1. People who think its important that others should understand when to call 999 or 101, and that you should speak up when people are not understanding
2. People who think 'FFS what does it matter which line you call, shut up!'

Clue: the emergency services themselves think that (2) is the definition.

It’s not uni halls, it’s a private landlord but found via the uni.

I haven't RTFT so apologies if this has already been mentioned, but can your DD report the matter to the uni Accommodations Office? We did this some years ago when our DS had a problem with his uni landlord. They were extremely helpful.

Agreed, urgent and important are not the same.

@trirose any update?

Classic Mumsnet. OP posts a serious topic. 7 pages of posters jump on to debate the admin for reporting it.

@Dragonflytamer the first 7 replies said, quite rightly, contact the police. Which is really the only answer.
The 8th insisted it was a 999 call,which is where it went wrong. There was really no more need after the seven comments for anything further. It's a police matter, report, let them deal.

No. The definition of ridiculous is arguing about it to the death over five pages so that the OP gives up the will to live and leaves the thread. Needing to be right, isn’t always right.

OP said quite far back that she had advised them to call 101.
There wasn't really any need to go on about it after that.

For what it's worth, I agree with you, but a new thread would have been a better place for this conversation.

I came onto the thread to find out what happened, and hope young woman was ok, so was a bit disappointed at the derail.

I phoned 101 several hours after my vile neighbours had a drunken fight (four men fighting and swearing in their back yard) and causing such a commotion that I yelled at them to shut up. They then threw stones and a chair at my window and threatened me. I have got so used to their horrible behaviour that I only called 101 after a friend said I needed to contact the police. Call handler said I should have phoned 999 as it was happening as it was an "active crime" and I was at risk. I would say that a hidden camera is an ongoing/active crime as it will be taking images of this young woman whenever she is in the room. If the call handler thinks differently then they will adivise. There are some truly awful people in the world and I hope that the perpetrator is found and punished

This is horrendous.

We this has turned into a shit show. Just come back from work and had to scroll through over 140 comments of mostly people arguing over which number to call. Really Not helpful guys.

The girl who found the camera has submitted an online form. Her Mom thinks the police won’t be interested or do anything. I feel that she should have at least called 101.

I came on here for advice as sadly I’m sure this has happened to others. I didn’t want this girl to make mistakes and prevent the ba**d being caught.

Scrolling through these squabbles has made realise this was probably the wrong place to come. I could of popped down to the local primary school to hear these sort of conversations. Pitiful really. Go start your own post to argue on.

I came back to this thread after several hours to see if there was an update only to find some people still bickering and arguing about 999 vs 101!
OP please let us know if there are any further developments and if your daughter is OK.

Don't unplug the router, if she hasn't already, but do log in and change the password. If you unplug it, the routing table is cleared. If an external or internal device is connected to the wi-fi camera, it will be logged in the routing table.

There are still ways to retrieve that information via the ISP if she has already unplugged it, but it will take longer.

If she doesn't know how to log into the router to change the password, the ISP will have instructions and the default password online. Changing the password will stop anyone from reconnecting unless they have the new password.