Only in recent years has the police accepted, or even embraced, the private patrolling of public space. An intriguing mid-1980s exception was schemes under the Manpower Services Commission (MSC), until bad publicity struck, according to a file at the National Archives.
The MSC, based in Sheffield, funded schemes to create jobs, including for the fitting of locks, chains and door viewers to the homes of the elderly and disabled. Under that rubric of community and crime prevention, some councils wanted to have the MSC fund security patrols. In 1986, Oscar Morris, the chief executive of Colwyn council in north Wales, sought MSC money for patrols of council premises and land against vandalism, having got the approval of local police and trade unions. Morris wrote to the Home Office in September 1986 that โonly during the last month deliberate fires have been started in buildings owned by the council within half a mile of police headquarters โฆ. but obviously it is impossible to trace the culpritsโ. The MSC had rejected the scheme. The council had no resources to appoint a full-time security service to cover all the public buildings (such as a leisure centre). Morris wrote that โpatrol menโ would have worn light grey with lime green kagouls, which Morris described as โa neighbourhood watch under strict supervisionโ.
Need for watch
In July 1986, Morris sent onto the Home Office a report of what the chief constable of Northumbria, Sir Stanley Bailey, told the Association of District Councils, meeting at Eastbourne, which Morris went to. Sir Stanley spoke of a need for โneighbourhood watchโ and not leaving the โfight against crimeโ to the police. He pointed out the grants available through the MSC to employ people in crime prevention, which would reduce unemployment.
Newspapers
Meanwhile, newspapers had caught hold of MSC-funded patrols. The Daily Express in January 1986 featured what it called โvigilante guard for the village plagued by vandalismโ, a one-year trial at Poulton with Fearnhead in Cheshire. Patrollers wore second-hand police uniforms and were โarmedโ with two-way radios. The headline was: โPrivate eyes on patrolโ. Although the MSC was a government agency, police regarded the patrollers as indeed private. The Express pictured two of the 41-strong โtaskforce of vigilantesโ, who stood beside a dark blue patrol car that said โManpower Services Commission community programmeโ on the doors. Two retired detectives ran the scheme. One was former Lancashire Police detective sergeant Harry Maughan, who told the Express: โWe are not out to play โcops and robbersโ. Our aim is to provide a back-up tot he police.โ The Mail printed a similar story.
Guidelines
The Home Office and the police responded with โguidelinesโ for the MSC and its schemes to follow. Patrolling could not be in streets or other public areas (that was the policeโs job). Procedures had to be designed to avoid confrontation; patrollers were not to detain anyone, but to call the police, because they had no special legal powers beyond those of the ordinary citizen. And schemes had to have โwide support in the communityโ. Indeed, the guidelines stated that โsecurity patrolling is open to sensationalised press coverage which may cause alarm to the community it is designed to serve. One scheme was referred to as a government-funded vigilante patrol, causing confusion and concernโ. A 21st century reader of the file, HO 287/4054, may take the view that the โconcernโ was inside the Home Office for its reputation.
Hurd in Liverpool
On July 3, 1986 Home Office official Liz France (who in the 2010s became chair of the Security Industry Authority) wrote to Northamptonshire chief constable Maurice Buck, who took national responsibility on the subject for police. Mrs France said the MSC would โkeep us in touch with the number of patrol schemes approved and we shall keep a close eye on the effect which the guidelines haveโ. Meanwhile, the Home Secretary Douglas Hurd had visited Liverpool in May 1986, and in particular Albert Dock, as an example of regeneration. Hurd heard about the local drugs โproblemโ, described as โseriousโ.
โConcernโ
Liz France opened a meeting between the Home Office and the MSC on patrol projects on May 28, 1986. The conference began with the Home Office โconcernโ about non-police security patrols in general; which the Home Office wanted to reduce. The MSC acknowledged this; and had told its field staff only to approve such projects โwhere local police were contentโ. It appeared, however, that such patrols had gone ahead without controversy; 25 schemes were running, all in the north of England. The MSC stood its ground; it called a โmoratoriumโ โinappropriateโ. The meeting discussed the draft guidelines. Urban councils such as Leeds, Sefton, Wirral, Knowsley, Stoke on Trent, Stockport, Salford, North Tyneside and St Helens were running patrols; a community association ran one at Cinnamon Brow, Warrington (the same one that got in the papers, where called Poulton with Fearnhead). The largest scheme by numbers was Hartlepoolโs โwatchman patrolโ; some schemes only had a handful, even one or two, patrollers. An earlier draft of the guidelines stated that the national newspapers calling a scheme โvigilantesโ were inaccurate, though still caused โconfusion and concernโ. As of spring 1986, the Home Office was asking that the MSC only approve such schemes โunder exceptional circumstancesโ, besides according to the guidelines.
Met view
John Dellow, as Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner for specialist operations, wrote to Mr Buck in April 1986, replying to Buckโs letter about the MSC. Dellow was cautious, and raised a concern about disclosure of criminal records (then โstrictly controlledโ by the police). In a letter to the Home Office also in April 1986, Mr Buck reiterated that โthe police are totally opposed to such schemes operating in public placesโ. While Mr Buck accepted that such schemes were already operating, โand in the main they appear to be acceptable to the police force concernedโ, he raised three issues. Local authorities had to be the lead. Consultation with police was essential. There should be no requirement for police to assist โwith training etcโ. And their uniforms could not resemble the policeโs. Mr Buck wanted the guidelines to โclearly indicate the inherent difficulties associated with such schemesโ. Mr Buck passed on his survey of his fellow chiefs, who were far from agreed. Avon and Somerset replied, โcannot be seen to opposeโ, while Greater Manchester Police (despite patrols on their patch) said โshould be resisted โ concerned with certain politically motivated councils could set up their own security forcesโ. More open to the idea was Thames Valley which sent a report on a local scheme; โno problemsโ. Bedfordshire instead quoted a local problem with a private security firm in a local shopping centre described as a โheavy mobโ, that caused โmany problemsโ. Hertfordshire preferred to discourage such schemes, because that force was making efforts to prevent neighbourhood watches taking up โvigilante patrolsโ. Northumbria noted that MSC schemes were already successful. Some chiefs noted the MSC funding was for one year, that came with no guarantee of renewal; they queried its quality.
Dismissed
Meanwhile in April 1986 the Home Office was making the case to the MSC in a meeting that police did not favour privately employed (which included MSC patroller schemes) patrolling the streets. But, the Home Office stopped short of asking for a โmoratoriumโ, although clearly that word had reached the MSC from the Home Office. Also in the file is a Daily Telegraph news item of March 15, 1986 that three members of a โvigilante groupโ at Cinnamon Brow were dismissed after a tip-off about their (undisclosed) criminal records. Yet another, February 18, 1986 meeting at the Home Office discussed the MSC and an unrelated, franchised patrol and checking service, Nightwatch, in south east England towns, such as Winchester. While Nightwatch was a legal service, the meeting heard, the company was not a member of the BSIA and its uniforms were described as โemotiveโ (presumably sparking emotion from the police for looking police-like). The risk aired was that the Home Office might be thought to be giving โtacit approvalโ and might add to a case for licensing of such guards (which the Home Office didnโt want). Nightwatch was to be โkept under reviewโ.
Mail quote
Cinnamon Brow meanwhile also featured in the Daily Mail, which on January 3, 1986 called it โamateur policeโ. The Home Office noticed that scheme was only to check premises of community groups; and the police had been consulted. The Mail however quoted the Labour MP Bruce George, who was behind a private memberโs Bill to license private security firms, and who called the patrol โappallingโ. The two โvigilantesโ quoted by the Mail were a former milkman, and an 18-year-old. The Mail variously termed them โvillage vigilantesโ and โjobless vigilantesโ. The former milkman said: โWe are not a private army or Kojak [a New York detective series on BBC TV] clones, we aim to cut break-ins and general yobbishness.โ Also on file was Police Review magazine, where a sergeant wrote in to condemn Cinnamon Brow as โcowboysโ. Yet the Department of Employment (the parent body of the MSC) pointed out that Knowsley and Sefton patrols had been going since 1982. Also relevant and on file was the sharp fall in numbers of special constables, doing community patrolling like the MSCโs. Some 45,000 specials in 1964 compared with only 16,000 in 1985.
Pay
Some paperwork forwarded by Colwyn council, hopeful of having its own scheme, to the Home Office sheds some light on the patrollersโ pay and conditions. Colwyn proposed to pay a patrol man ยฃ2.75 an hour (which would pay for a couple of pints and packets of crisps at 1980s prices) for a 22.5 hour week, giving an average ยฃ61.87 a week. A superviser would earn ยฃ129.56 for a 39-hour week. Patrols would cover playgrounds, public toilets, pumping stations, and chalets and kiosks at Colwyn Bay, a coach park and crematorium; theatre and playing fields. To back its application, the council sent a long list of vandalism against such amenities.
