Reported by shaunybhoy, scan by romanian1 (thanks)
Trespassers find police videos
4/ 4/2007
A GROUP of people who broke into a disused police station found police video tapes abandoned there.
The tapes, some marked as `evidence', were unearthed by a team of `urban explorers' who got into the property under cover of darkness.
The four trespassers spent time roaming around the building in Harrogate Street in the centre of Wigan, taking photographs of the cells and offices to post on a website later on.
But during their exploration they say they found a pile of sealed VHS tapes that had lain undiscovered since the station closed at the beginning of last year.
Other members of the website - 28dayslater.co.uk - are said to have already organised another trip to break in again.
But Greater Manchester Police, which says the station should have been cleaned out when it was closed, has arranged to have the building emptied properly before they get there.
On the website the station is described as `a very ugly building in the centre of Wigan with lots of empty offices in the upper part.'
The text added: "The best part was the cells and evidence areas". Photographs show pictures inside the cells, graffiti on the doors and the interview rooms - along with pictures of 28 video tapes lying on the floor.
Speculation
Members of the site have speculated that they contain confidential police interviews with suspects from around the Manchester area whose identities should be covered by the Data Protection Act.
But a GMP spokeswoman said most of the tapes, which had been marked for destruction, had been wiped.
She said: "Employees of the current owner of the building allowed police admin staff access to the old Wigan police headquarters so they could investigate some footage of the building that was recently posted online.
"The team found a number of bags of old video tapes inside some offices in the large building. They also found that whoever had been into the building since it was emptied had destroyed walls and kicked down a number of doors to get access to locked rooms. The videotapes, of which there were a couple of hundred, were in bags from the contracting company and were marked for disposal. Random checks of them have shown they have either been wiped or were four-year-old Gatso traffic camera footage.
"The entire building was thoroughly searched and all GMP documents that were found have now been removed."
Website... Trespassers find police videos
archive pdf... http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/downloads/pdf/ManchesterEveningNews.pdf
Trespassers find police videos
4/ 4/2007
A GROUP of people who broke into a disused police station found police video tapes abandoned there.
The tapes, some marked as `evidence', were unearthed by a team of `urban explorers' who got into the property under cover of darkness.
The four trespassers spent time roaming around the building in Harrogate Street in the centre of Wigan, taking photographs of the cells and offices to post on a website later on.
But during their exploration they say they found a pile of sealed VHS tapes that had lain undiscovered since the station closed at the beginning of last year.
Other members of the website - 28dayslater.co.uk - are said to have already organised another trip to break in again.
But Greater Manchester Police, which says the station should have been cleaned out when it was closed, has arranged to have the building emptied properly before they get there.
On the website the station is described as `a very ugly building in the centre of Wigan with lots of empty offices in the upper part.'
The text added: "The best part was the cells and evidence areas". Photographs show pictures inside the cells, graffiti on the doors and the interview rooms - along with pictures of 28 video tapes lying on the floor.
Speculation
Members of the site have speculated that they contain confidential police interviews with suspects from around the Manchester area whose identities should be covered by the Data Protection Act.
But a GMP spokeswoman said most of the tapes, which had been marked for destruction, had been wiped.
She said: "Employees of the current owner of the building allowed police admin staff access to the old Wigan police headquarters so they could investigate some footage of the building that was recently posted online.
"The team found a number of bags of old video tapes inside some offices in the large building. They also found that whoever had been into the building since it was emptied had destroyed walls and kicked down a number of doors to get access to locked rooms. The videotapes, of which there were a couple of hundred, were in bags from the contracting company and were marked for disposal. Random checks of them have shown they have either been wiped or were four-year-old Gatso traffic camera footage.
"The entire building was thoroughly searched and all GMP documents that were found have now been removed."
Website... Trespassers find police videos
archive pdf... http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/downloads/pdf/ManchesterEveningNews.pdf
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