[switch007]

IMO as this was handled by police trained for city center brawling, it would have been almost the exact same outcome without CCTV. They may have arrived slightly later, but if you were in the city center near the pubs/clubs, there's often a minimum of 10 officers hanging around

[cones688]

Arrived slightly later and not known who the perpetrator was or have admissible evidence to that effect. The guy had already run away onto another street - it's likely he wouldn't have been caught.

It also very much changed the officer handling us behaviour I would imagine, as usually in such brawls they detain everyone then get he said/she said stories. Instead he knew the guy had run across the street after we hadn't even acknowledged him, so knew my friend was the "victim".