The Big Brother that's no game

It is 3pm and kd lang's voice soars and fills the air with Constant Craving. A group of young people are listening to a radio blasting out Ms lang's voice several decibels above her natural range. They sit on white plastic chairs in a scrubby patch of front garden and swig from beer bottles while babies play at their feet. I can feel their stares as Steve Smith and I get out of his battered car and walk up to his battered house. The night before, he says, they threw their empty bottles into their neighbours" garden. I wear sunglasses to shield my guilty eyes so I do not blow his cover.

Smith is an operative with Professional Witnesses, a private firm specialising in providing councils and housing associations with video evidence of tenants' anti-social behaviour. The company says it can provide single camera installation with a recorder, multiple camera installations in buildings, operatives posing as council staff, two-man covert operations and operatives posing as tenants.

Smith is ensconced for 11 days in a two-up two-down terrace house on an estate north of Manchester. During this time he and colleague Claire Jones are gathering evidence for a council of anti-social behaviour by tenants. This cumulated earlier this year with a woman being forced out after suffering harassment from her neighbours.

Smith and Jones are posing as a couple with small children and have taken out a legitimate tenancy with the council. Smith says it was impossible to tell any but the most senior council staff of their work because of a leak in the housing office.

The stake-out house smells of alcohol, urine and disinfectant. It was once nicely decorated with a yellow and blue wallpapered living room, stencil patterns on the walls of the front bedroom upstairs, and a purple bathroom with green taps. Now it looks shabby and dirty.

On one side of the front bedroom's windowsill is a yellow toy bunny next to a stack of Beano annuals. A black speaker sits at the other end. Typical stuff - except both contain video cameras, which are attached to two televisions on the floor connected to two videos. They are making a 24- hour-a-day, seven day a week recording of the council's tool hut opposite. Two small boys are now jumping on it and throwing rocks. In the background is a boarded-up house covered in red graffiti which says: "Michelle is a sweaty cow" and "Michelle is a grass. Ha ha!". Smith tells me the gratified house is next to the home of Michelle, the tenant forced to move.

To make the move in look as realistic as possible, Professional Witnesses provided Smith and Jones with beds, toys, a three piece suite, televisions and clothes as well as the necessary recording devices. To guard all the high-tech gear Smith has enlisted the help of his own dogs Fred and Ginger. To add to the authenticity of a "family" home a child's dirty white sock lies at the bottom of the stairs by the front door.

Smith says they have settled in relatively easily. "The heroin addict from number 5 knocked on the door and offered to sell Claire her sofa for £30. Claire said "no thanks, we have everything we need". What can you say?," he shrugs.

He has been a Professional Witnesses operative for eight months and, like all the other operatives, had been in the armed forces. He was a paratrooper for 14 years and is a young looking 32. "I enjoy the variety of work in this job because you are not doing the same thing all the time," he explains.

Professional Witnesses was launched by Trevor Barton in August 1995, two weeks after retiring from a 32-year career in the police. He had followed in his detective inspector father's footsteps and joined as a 19- year old. He worked his way up to chief superintendent with the police force in Greater Manchester in charge of 550 staff.

Barton's experience of running air support units linking surveillance images back to police stations at events like football matches, lead to the formation of Professional Witnesses. His contacts told him there was a requirement for people to give quality evidence about tenants' anti-social behaviour and he rose to the challenge. The Latin phrase Res Ipso Loquitur (the thing speaks for itself), which appears on the bottom of Professional Witnesses faxes, sums up the firm's approach to its work.

He says: "Regrettably, the climate of fear is getting worse. We have now got to the stage whereby not only will residents and tenants not give evidence [about anti-social behaviour], nor will some housing officers."

Professional Witnesses now has nine full-time and 20 freelance operatives across the country. It has worked for 25 councils, including Manchester and Coventry, and 18 housing associations including Collingwood and North British housing associations.

Its nondescript office is based to the west of Manchester. As security is of the utmost importance the company does not have a sign declaring its existence. Instead, a sign for a garage hangs above the front door. This helps explains the large number of (surveillance) vehicles in its car park and diverts attention away from its real business.

Inside, along with traditional office fittings, is a room equipped with video editing facilities. In another, the undercover staff can sleep when they are working long shifts. With its bunk beds and stripy blue duvet covers it looks like any average bedroom - except the shelf units and floor are covered with all manner of recording equipment, cameras, different coloured cables and wires, video machines, duct tape, film, bottles and mini lights. Three car batteries with crocodile leads attached sit in one corner. I ask covert operations manager Neil Richards what they are for: "Torturing people," he says and smiles as I am almost convinced. In fact, the operatives use the batteries to run equipment from during covert operations.

Social landlords approach Professional Witnesses, often in partnership with the local police, to gather the unequivocal evidence needed to tackle anti-social behaviour. This can result in the tenant being warned about their behaviour, an anti-social behaviour order being granted or even the eviction of the tenant. In the most extreme cases, the police - with the landlords' support - prosecute those concerned.

The range of activities the company has captured on film vary from tenants deliberately damaging property and a man who ran an illegal garage from his council flat to gangs of drug dealers at work.

Is filming tenants like this legal? "Yes," is Barton's firm response. He says as a member of the Association of British Investigations, he has pledged that the company will not break the law, including those surrounding data protection and intrusive surveillance. He says: "There is nothing wrong in videoing people for the purposes of targeted surveillance. What we do is a timed and dated objective record and we have no means of influencing what is taking place."

He adds: "It is this fear of crime and attack on estates that is the most insidious thing of all. And if nobody stand up to if that fear, which is probably worse than reality, it just grows exponentially."

Barton goes on: "Councillors and directors of housing have got to say in clear language that they will not hesitate to use anything in their power to ensure that the vast majority of tenants can carry out a standard and a way of life one would normal expect to live."

He says: "I don't envy the responsibility of local authorities, housing associations and the police in dealing with what can be undoubtedly deep seated problems. There ain't no such thing in this area as a quick fix."