The anti-capitalist protest forcing St Paul’s Cathedral to close is a ‘big charade’ with only one in ten tents occupied overnight, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Footage from a thermal imaging camera shot by a police helicopter revealed that the ramshackle camp is almost completely empty during the cold nights.
It suggests the majority of the 300 ‘defiant’ protesters at the cathedral return home or to hotels after dark to sleep in warm beds.

OccupyLSX was surprised to hear The Telegraph and others reporting this morning that 90% of our tents are empty overnight. This is simply not the case. We try to keep vacancy to a minimum and operate a sign in/sign out system to help ensure this happens. When someone knows they will not be staying overnight, they offer their tent to someone else.

We are ordinary people with jobs and families. We are occupying in order to register our objection to being shut out of the political process. The fact that we are camping out here shows how seriously we take our right to participate and be heard. We are part of the 99%.

It’s certainly interesting to hear that the Corporation of London are wasting many thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money in monitoring our numbers by helicopter. But what about the “thermal imaging cameras”? We might be in a public space, but these tents are our homes – at least some of the time – and everyone has a right to privacy.

Being woken up in the middle of the night by a journalist with a camera is an unpleasant experience, and even more so for a female sleeping in a tent alone. The Press Team is happy to facilitate interviews at all hours of the night (we had Radio 5 Live broadcasting from 1am to 5am the other day), but we do ask that such requests go through us on this number 0845 299 6175. Our volunteers will do their best to help.

lot of lazy layabouts that would not know what they are protesting about ...if it wasn't for capitalism no taxes would get paid then where would they get their benefits ...do like they did in Melbourne get rid of them by force .
- raymond, melbourne ..australia, 25/10/2011 5:36 256

I wonder how many of these 'anti-capitalist' protesters are wearing designer clothes, using iPhones, drinking Starbucks, eating McDonalds, sleeping in an expensive tent and living off Daddy who uses a Mastercard and drives a General Motors car, goes abroad in a Boeing plane on a British Airways flight to a Marriott hotel and even have their own bank accounts with the banks they claim to despise. Hypocrites. 458

Plastic Protestors running home of a night time cos they're cold, hahahaha
- Paul Downey, North West England, 25/10/2011 5:04 286

I have worked all my life since the age of 16. I have only had two jobs, never unemployed... I have never claimed any type of benefit. I live in a house thats worth £125k. My pension has been reduced from RPI to CPI. I have never gambled in my life. Always voted Tory....I have always invested my money in the Banks , I fully support the St Pauls protestors.... The Rich have screwed me..
Max, Rugeley, 26/10/2011 0:31 444

I have worked all my life since the age of 16. I have only had two jobs, never unemployed... I have never claimed any type of benefit.

I live in a house thats worth £125k.

My pension has been reduced from RPI to CPI.

I have never gambled in my life. Always voted Tory....I have always invested my money in the Banks

I fully support the St Pauls protestors.... The Rich have screwed me..

"The cathedral said it was losing up to £20,000 a day