Call Recording Enhances Performance At Gloucestershire Police

Gloucestershire Police, recognised as one of the UK's most effective forces in dealing with serious and organised crime, is achieving notable successes after installing a CyberTech Pro voice recording solution. It is providing rapid access to all telephone and radio communications that may have taken place with the force's central control room and contact centre and is helping to enhance detection and clear-up rates, both in Gloucestershire and across the UK.

"The CyberTech solution has delivered a rapid ROI by reducing the time taken by officers to produce evidence files of 999 calls tapes for the criminal justice system and speeding up criminal investigations," commented Mark Woodward, Business Continuity and Projects Manager at Gloucestershire Police. "For example, after receiving an urgent request from another Police Force for a copy of a call received on 23 March 2006 in relation to an ongoing homicide investigation, we were able to find and email it to them in less than 25 minutes - not many forces can provide that level of service!"

These time savings are being achieved using CyberTech Pro's intuitive browser-based user interface and flexible search criteria that enable calls to be located in minutes. Recordings can be copied onto disk for maximum sound quality or instantly emailed to investigating officers, charging review lawyers or directly to Courts where criminal cases are being heard.

As well as enabling Gloucestershire Police to quickly carry out speculative searches for additional intelligence about specific incidents, the CyberTech system is helping to identify and track the incidence of malicious 999 callers. For example, searches using CLI data revealed that one such person made over 400 nuisance calls over a 5 month period whilst another made over 900 calls over a twelve-month period. In these and other instances, evidence was produced in minutes that enabled the Crown Prosecution Service to successfully secure convictions.

The CyberTech Pro system records over 130 channels handling all 999 calls and TETRA radio traffic from operational personnel. Between 10,000 and 13,000 hours of channel hours are recorded each month and stored on a RAID 5 archive system for up to seven years to support an increasing demand for older evidence to support high profile cases. A CyberTech quality management system has also been fully integrated with CyberTech Pro and provides a framework that is used with the existing call handler assessment matrix to ensure that National Call Handling Standards are consistently achieved. This is supported by proactive customer surveys to check that standards are being maintained and the highest level of service is being provided to the public.

CyberTech has also provided Gloucester Constabulary with an innovative ambient recording system to capture commands issued and operational discussions in the control room during major incidents. It enables events to be replayed in real-time in conjunction with all radio and telephone-based communications for debriefing purposes and the identification of changes that can be made to improve the incident handling process.

According to CyberTech UK Director Paul Manyweathers: "We are delighted that CyberTech voice recording solutions are making such an important contribution to solving crime in Gloucestershire and beyond. CyberTech is now one of the leading suppliers to the emergency services globally with more than 35% of the UK's Police Forces and over 80% of all Ambulance Service Trusts using our systems around the clock."

For more information visit:
www.cybertech-int.co.uk