A teenager whose bag and £165 iPod were stolen from a school changing room has been refused permission to look at CCTV footage because it would infringe the rights of the thief.

Oliver Wheen, 16, even went as far as making a Freedom of Information Act ( FOI) request to try to get the images but has been left frustrated by teachers and council officials citing Data Protection Act regulations to him.

The schoolboy, from Surrenden Road, Brighton, said: "I didn t know it was against the law.

"It doesn't make much sense. What s the point of having the cameras if they can't use them?"

He was backed by his mother Lesley, who had to change the locks at her home because their address was in the bag with Oliver s house keys.

She said: "It makes a bit of a mockery of having the cameras in the first place.

"What are they actually there for?

"If they are supposed to be a deterrent they obviously haven' t deterred anyone.

"They clearly aren t being used to catch anyone either."

Oliver s school, Varndean, in Balfour Road, Brighton, told The Argus it followed strict guidance that only designated staff c ould look at CCTV because under the Data Protection Act, pupils and other staff were only allowed to watch footage of themselves.

When Oliver made his FOI request for the images to Brighton and Hove City Council after he learned about the FOI act in a politics lesson, he received the same response.

Information compliance administrator Wendy Kassamani said: "You are entitled to CCTV footage of yourself but not of other people."

Oliver asked to see footage from cameras covering the entrance to his school's PE changing rooms after his bag containing clothes, books, his iPod Touch and keys vanished while he was in a 90 minute games lesson, trampolining in the sports hall.

The door was supposed to be locked during classes but had been left open.

Oliver was initially allowed to sit alongside a staff member while they scanned footage in fast-forward but after he complained the video needed to be shown in realtime he was referred to his deputy head, who made clear he should not have been shown it in the first place.

Oliver, who will take his GCSEs this summer, said he thought the school should have done more about the incident because it was partly responsible for having left the door unlocked.

A spokeswoman for Varndean School said: "As a rule it is locked but every child knows that if they have anything valuable in their bag they have to give it to the teacher for them to lock up.

"There are no CCTV cameras in the changing rooms for privacy reasons so the only footage would have been of someone walking out with the pupil's bag.

"It has been reviewed and nothing like that was seen."

The teenager's parents reported the incident to Sussex Police. His bag was handed in at the school on Friday, after being missing for three weeks. His iPod and a branded hooded jumper are both still missing.

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