Council admits many Wirral schools have CCTV cameras in toilet areas

Oct 8 2008 by Lorna Hughes, Birkenhead News

A DOZEN schools across Wirral have installed CCTV in toilets, according to Wirral Council.

The revelation follows our story last week about a pupil at Hilbre High School in West Kirby who was given a detention for blocking a toilet camera with Blu-Tack.

His parents said they were horrified to find the school had installed CCTV and said it was an invasion of his privacy.

A council spokesman said that because schools are largely self-governing, they could not be precise but said recently refurbished secondary schools had installed them.

She insisted the cameras are trained only on washbasin areas and not in cubicles.

Wirral has 27 secondary schools, five special schools and 101 primary schools catering for approximately 50,000 pupils.

According to the council, most schools have external CCTV, but many also have internal cameras, and they had been “very successful” in cutting down on incidents of bullying which occur out of sight of teaching staff.