Business leaders in a Shropshire town are vying to create their own SmartWater zone by encouraging all traders and residents to sign-up for the crime-busting technology.
Oakengates Chamber of Trade is heading a bid to see widespread use of security marking with the uniquely-coded forensic liquid that links thieves to their crimes.
It is hoping to get more than 100 businesses in the Shropshire town to put SmartWater to work on their premises and to educate individual residents about doing the same.
SmartWater is a colourless, odourless and invisible liquid that can be applied to property. If items are stolen and recovered by police, the SmartWater shows up under ultraviolet light and each application has a one-off code that tells investigating officers who it belongs to. When SmartWater-marked items are found in a criminal's possession, the liquid proves that the items are stolen and officers can also check for traces of the liquid on an offender's skin, clothing and other possessions.
Christine Orford, chairman of Oakengates Chamber of Trade, told the Shropshire Star newspaper: “We want everything you can imagine marked – tills, computers, stock, whatever you can think of.
“You can't get away from SmartWater, there's no way on earth that you can clean it off.”
As part of its wider risk-management approach to crime deterrence, SmartWater, which is itself based in Telford, Shropshire, also has a range of devices that can spray an offender directly with the forensic liquid when they enter premises illegally.
Part of Oakengates' approach to deploying SmartWater widely will be to highlight the fact with signs, alerting criminals to the risks they face in committing property crime in the town.
SmartWater chief executive, Phil Cleary, said: “The criminal fraternity understands very well the risk they face in interfering with SmartWater protected property and the clever ones will walk away rather than take that risk. SmartWater has a 100 per cent conviction rate in the court cases where it has been used as evidence.”
It was the power of this deterrent effect that brought SmartWater to the notice of crime-fighting investigative TV journalist Donal MacIntyre, who voluntarily filmed a series of adverts for SmartWater at locations around Shropshire earlier this year.
The adverts can be seen at www.youtube.com/smartwatertv