Getting CCTV footage of other children (bullying)

[NittersAndSewers]

Can anyone advise me on the legalities of CCTV, data protection ,etc?

My son is being picked on by some kids at the bus stop. Name calling, hand gestures, pretending to shoot him, throwing stuff at him, and in school lots of shoving, tripping up etc. They got worse after he told school about it the first time so is understandably too scared to tell school again. School know it has escalated but can't do anything unless he names them. A few days ago I witnessed it myself as I arrived to pick him up from the bus stop. I had also seen hand gestures in two previous occasions. Yesterday I noticed that the building they stand next to, a private business, has 2 CCTV cameras pointing at exactly where these things have been happening.

I have another thread going about how to deal with the bullying, but need some advice on the CCTV. Who can ask for copies of it? The parents of the children? The school? Does it really have to be the police? My son won't be in the footage of the latest incident, he was standing on the other side of the street, but all the actions were directed at him.

Sorry if this is rushed with typos! Gotta dash... MANY thanks

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How could you prove it was him at the other side of the street? And what would you want to do with the footage anyway?

Thanks for your reply, anyonefortennis. Only mine and ds's word for it that he was on the other side of the street, unless of course there are other cctv cameras pointing that way (will check). The building has a road on each side so it's possible.

To answer your second question...tbh I'm not really sure. A big part of the problem is that the main bully's parents are in denial about what has been happening and I just felt victorious that there would be proof (other than my ds's word for it) of the type of thing their boy is doing. Not very mature of me, I know, but I guess emotions are incredibly heightened when your child is being targeted :( Perhaps it could be shown to the school to handle it. Ds is too scared to mention names but cctv footage might be another matter.

I'm not sure that you'd be able to get CCTV for bullying.

If a criminal offence had been committed, the police could request the CCTV, but you'd need to act fast because some businesses loop over the same videos. Usually CCTV is rewritten every 6 weeks, but it can be much shorter.

You can request CCTV from places like supermarket carparks, but usually the store has a duty to remove third party information, in order to comply with data protection. So you could request the CCTV but the part you need, featuring other people's children, may not be released to you.

You don't need the parents of the other child to admit that their child is a bully, or to see evidence of it. The school should be dealing with this. They probably wouldn't be interested in seeing CCTV that was taken off-site, but they should be dealing with the bullying problem and the other parents. This wouldn't serve as evidence anyway - the boys can "agree" that they were aiming the hand signals at each other, or someone else out of shot, or just say it absolutely wasn't at your son, and then you're back to their word against yours. It isn't really proof of anything, if your son doesn't ever appear.

Then there is the fact that if your son is against mentioning who the bullies are, and refuses to speak to the school again, he is incredibly unlikely to even attempt to show them CCTV showing who the bullies are.

I think, unfortunately, you are chasing something that actually doesn't help at all. Even if you do acquire the right footage, I can't see it making a difference unless the children are committing a crime.

EVerything you said makes sense, repeatadnauseum, and sort of confirms a lot of what I'd been thinking. Thanks for an objective view on this, it does help :)