POLICE are so worried about attacks on speed cameras they are installing new secret spy cameras to monitor sites.

The spy cameras will be placed in areas across West Yorkshire where the yellow roadside boxes have been targeted by vandals.

The police-funded move, administered by West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership, has been tried out in other parts of the country.

The new covert cameras can be placed on street lamps, road signs, and telegraph poles several hundred metres from the speed cameras they are monitoring.

They are also equipped with night vision so they can be used round the clock and are linked to police CCTV systems.

Chief Insp Christopher Moorehouse-Everett, the police representative on the partnership, said vandalism was not a major issue in West Yorkshire.

"It's mostly confined to the occasional low level use of spray paint or fireworks," he said. But some cameras had been repeatedly set on fire, including ones at Berry Brow and Denby Dale."