Only one in 10 St Paul's protesters stay overnight

Just one in 10 of the tents at the Occupy London Stock Exchange camp which has closed St Paul's Cathedral are occupied at night, it can be revealed.

The camp forced St Paul's to close for the first time since the Blitz and is costing local businesses thousands of pounds a day.

But most of the protesters are heading home to sleep in their own beds at night.

Infra red images taken by a police helicopter during the early hours show that only around 20 of the 200 tents on the encampment actually have people staying in them.

The Daily Telegraph has shot its own video of the St Paul's camp using thermal imaging equipment which appears to confirm these claims.

The protesters are aware of the vacancies and allocate empty tents to newcomers and anyone staying for the day.

On Monday the revelation was described as a "charade" and pressure was growing on the church and other authorities to evict the camp.

"It is like a phantom camp – a big charade," said Matthew Richardson, a Corporation of London councillor, who is calling for action to be taken.

"It just shows that most of the people don't have the courage of their convictions and are here just to make trouble and leaving your tent here overnight is a good way to do that."

Mr Richardson said it does not bear contemplating that services at St Paul's could be disrupted through Remembrance Sunday and all the way up to Christmas.

"If you cannot commemorate the people who died for your right to protest then it is awful and having no services at Christmas would be even worse," he said.

He said that the Corporation of London was ready to proceed but that St Paul's, which is losing £20,000-a-day, was holding up any action.

"It is just a mess," he said.

"My understanding is that the church are the ones that are holding up the process. It is frustrating but they are just muddling through the best they can.

"The church has to make a decision and the sooner, the better."

Mr Richardson said an emergency meeting of the corporation was being held on Thursday to deal with the occupation.

A sign on one of the tents said: "All day, all week, we'll sleep on London's freezing streets. Solidarity."

The City of London police said they were not prepared to release the pictures as they were one of a range of techniques used for intelligence purposes.

"We are constantly assessing the situation and continue to provide low key policing that facilitates peaceful while minimising disruption to the local community," said a spokesman.

Clarification: In common with other newspapers, this article says that police thermal imagery showed that only about 10 per cent of tents in the Occupy London camp were occupied at night. We wish to clarify that this information - backed up the next day by the Telegraph's own thermal imaging video - was based on comments from Councillor Matthew Richardson, which were confirmed by an informed police source.