On Saturday night I got on a GWR train to Cardiff, to begin a journey home. On the platform I had half an eye on the two security officers (one had a hi-vis vest saying STM Group, the specialist railway security contractor, on the back) on duty on the platform.
One was sitting on a bench beside a woman, dressed up for going out. Or, she had already gone out. In the 20 minutes following, before the train arrived, the officer escorted the woman to the station entrance. At one point, clearly unsteady, her legs buckled. I didn’t hang around and was not nosey enough to ask about why the woman was in need of uniformed help and what the officer was proposing to do. What is certain is that Security was the only official presence on the two-platformed station (the gateline to check tickets, staffed that morning, was now open – the railways tend not to carry out revenue protection on Saturday evenings, presumably because the drunkenness would make efforts to check tickets, let alone enforce payment from fare evaders, too risky). If the lone woman was in a state because she had drunk too much, by 6.40pm, what of her personal responsibilaity to look after her own safety? The scene showed also the awkward position of security contract officers. What was the officer to do, to best carry out safeguarding – leave the woman outside railway property, to find a taxi as best she could; or would that only add to her vulnerability? Was he supposed to take matters into his own hands, take her phone and ring a friend, or would that leave him open to a complaint from the woman? How long could the officer attend to the woman before he was not looking after the other passengers, out of sight on the platform?
The recent After Dark Strategy by Westminster City Council divided the night into four, three-hour periods; 6pm to 9pm is evening, in other words, the relatively quiet time before the peak of 9pm to midnight. In other words, if men and women alike are getting drunk on Saturdays from the morning onwards (and they are, whether going to football matches or parties in town, or journeying into regional centres such as Edinburgh and Tyneside), safeguarding by door staff and uniformed private security generally can be a long shift.
A couple of days before, at the guard firm Carlisle Support Services’ increasingly impressive and large Innovation Lab, for employees and customers, at London Excel, three recently-retired senior cops, now working for Carlisle, in a panel chaired by criminologist Prof Martin Gill spoke about the work towards ‘integration’ of some private security and police patrolling. They were Allan Gregory, former British Transport Police (BTP) assistant chief constable, Nick Aldworth, campaigner for Martyn’s Law; and Stephen Grainger, recently announced as one of the Security Industry Authority’s non-executive directors. A second round-table meeting about ‘integration’ (the first was reported in the January edition of Professional Security Magazine) is going ahead, with a view to the private and public sector alike (Home Office, BTP, Transport for London among others) putting together a ‘product’ to put before the 43 UK police forces, for policing’s approval. That ‘product’ could include training for SIA-badged officers, or a ‘refresh’ of CSAS, the community safety accreditation scheme, or a national uniform for security officers from whichever contractor if they are carrying out police-like, on-street or on-railway premises tasks, that don’t require a police warrant card.
Police leaders and the authorities generally are busy and such ‘integration’ may be safely shelved, a pessimist may say. The optimist could point to my little story: the police-like work by private security – that the round-table is trying to formalise, to reassure the public and bridge any gaps that warranted police officers are not able to fill – is routinely happening already.
