Last week, we revealed that CCTV cameras in Muswell Hill and Crouch End Broadways are not monitored. SHYAMTARA NI FHOGLU went out one night to see what they are missing.

It's Sunday night on a Bank Holiday weekend and Muswell Hill Broadway is littered with people looking for their last pint before closing time.

Most bars close at 11pm, so the options are limited. Cafe Loco closes at midnight, N10 is hosting a private function and The Hill is only letting in people already on a guest list.

A pair of desperate hangers-on argue with Cafe Loco's bouncer at 11.45pm to convince him to let them into the packed bar, which has already called last orders and will be closing in 15 minutes.

Around the corner a group of young people have gathered outside the now closed O'Neill's pub.

Three young men, Chris, Carlo and Saead, are sitting down watching the street entertainment' a group of young men cavorting around on the pub steps and jumping on a nearby shopping trolley. Surprisingly, the three sitting down have just been to the gym. Carlo and Chris travelled all the way from Edmonton after getting passes for a free workout. They are now wondering how they will get home.

Saead, who lives in Muswell Hill, says he doesn't drink, and you can see why given the ongoing shopping trolley antics. After obligingly posing for our photographer, two of the revellers, Marcus and Christopher, tear themselves away from the trolley and weave their way over for a chat.

They are sporting fashionably retro outfits after raiding a box of clothes left outside the Sue Ryder Care charity shop further up the street, and have found a way to wear almost the entire collection between them.

Christopher says he lives down the road', but the pair are too fascinated by meeting someone who can write in the dying art of shorthand' to explain how they ended up in Muswell Hill Broadway that evening.

Across the road an ambulance has been called out, and is parked in front of a some flats with its lights flashing. Two passers-by say a man fell and hurt his leg, but he doesn't want to go in the ambulance.

"He's just drunk," one of them says.

By now Cafe Loco has closed and people are spilling onto the street and into waiting taxis, or over to the 24-hour Super Saver shop.

A huge, rugby-playing South African lurches into the shop asking if he can buy some alcohol, even though all the bottles have been locked up.

He promises to drink responsibly, but from the looks of him it's already too late.

When a shop attendant refuses to serve him alcohol, he asks if he can buy an ice-cream instead and is told he is welcome to.

"Well I don't want an ice-cream, do I?" he snaps and lumbers back out of the shop.

The attendant shrugs and says: "You see what we have to put up with? You get immune to it."

When asked how much safer he would feel if footage from the CCTV cameras was recorded, he looks surprised and asks if they have been switched on yet.

In Muswell Hill it seems to be common knowledge among traders that the Broadway's CCTV cameras, don't work' or are switched off'.

In fact, they operate as part of system whereby the police can notify Haringey Council's CCTV control room of an incident, so that a camera can be trained on that area.

Unfortunately, most incidents are over before the police know about them. And even when an officer out on the beat is aware of an ongoing incident, they are not able to speak to the CCTV control room directly.

Had the cameras been monitored, they might have caught the brawl outside the Super Saver a couple of Saturday nights ago.

Or they might have helped in apprehending the person who stole hundreds of pounds from a woman's back account during the day after her card was swallowed by a cash machine.

Peter Thompson, of the Hillfield Park Neighbourhood Watch, says the cameras on Muswell Hill Broadway could be very useful for recording late night incidents that the police cannot get to."There is no doubt that there are sometimes quite violent affrays on the hill and police don't get there until after the incident," he says. "They get a lot of young people there and they have a few drinks and there's little arguments about, and that's the sort of thing that would be so easy to catch."

In Crouch End, Christopher Freeman, of the Crouch End Traders' Association, echoes the sentiment, saying that the cameras are needed most when people pour out of the closed pubs and bars.

"It's at turfing-out time in the evening when people get drunk and loutish and do irresponsible things," he says. "In the event of anything more serious CCTV would be there to help the police."

He says that vandalism and nuisance behaviour during the day could also be avoided if people were aware that the cameras were being monitored. But what really bothers Mr Freeman is the fact the council spends £300,000 of taxpayers' money on cameras which he sees lying idle.

Chief Superintendent Stephen Bloomfield, the borough police commander, has pushed for a police radio link to be installed which would allow individual officers to contact the CCTV control room directly.

"I'm pleased with the CCTV coverage in Haringey," he says. "However, I'm also committed to the continued development of our systems."

A proposed upgrade of Haringey Council's CCTV control room would allow for 24-hour surveillance of all cameras across the borough.

In the past year, Haringey has seen a borough-wide increase of violent crimes against the person by 841 incidents.

However, overall crime in Crouch End has dropped by 25 per cent in the past year, with 14 fewer snatch and grab robberies, and 146 fewer thefts from vehicles.

The overall crime figures for Muswell Hill show a three per cent increase, with an extra 53 thefts from vehicles. Burglaries, robberies and thefts of vehicles were down in both areas.

Both Mr Thompson and Mr Freeman feel that every little bit helps and if CCTV surveillance could be used both in aiding investigations and as a deterrent, residents will feel safer.

Perhaps the sight of grown men in shopping trollies at closing time might also become something of a rarer sight.