Sunday morning might be your most relaxing time of the week. But a corner of west London was anything but, one recent Sunday, for the opening of an international jewellery show. Professional Security took up an invite to see the overt and covert security at the event. Mark Rowe reports.
At 8am on a September Sunday, a Metropolitan Police man walked off the platform of Earls Court Tube station. At the passenger gates, the Underground member of staff let the policeman through; he said thank you, walked out the station, in light rain, and crossed the road, to the Earls Court exhibition centre. Other people were going the same way, holding umbrellas and pulling suitcases on wheels; or, maybe, holding a cup of coffee. It looked like any morning of any show at any venue. International Jewellery London 2011 (IJL) run by Reed Exhibitions is not just any show. It’s a trade-only, four-day show at Earls Court 2. And while not belittling the other shows at Earls Court 1 or 2 – covering beer, weddings, and homes – jewellery brings special security needs. Jewellery is so portable, desirable and sellable. How much were the jewels worth inside the building? Who could say? It must have been millions. The venue for a few days became a high-value trade shop and warehouse. Security’s job: to keep it that way. It fell to the security consultancy for the show, Searchers Associates Limited, to do the security for a catwalk, when around the neck or arms of the male and female models could be gold or other jewellery worth – well, take a number and put several noughts after it.
About 8.45am, a black Porsche Carrera stopped at the Earls Court 2 gate, over the road from West Brompton Tube station, and a woman took something out of the front boot and walked to the show. Dave Easy of consultancy Searchers greeted me at the gate and walked me to the show entrance. On the way he checked that a promotional double decker bus was not in the way of the site CCTV. “We’ve been doing the show for seven years,” he said. He stressed the work with others: the Earls Court site security, and police forces. “We work very closely with the Flying Squad; obviously; the local Kensington police; and with British Transport Police,” besides hotel security teams, and Immigration, as jewellery thieves may be of interest to the authorities for immigration offences. Searchers have built up intelligence, and receive and pass information about potential thieves. I and Mark Beale of the Flying Squad, one of the morning seminar speakers, enter a portable cabin at the side of the show entrance and have our photos taken and a colour photo-ID card and lanyard given to us, on showing photo-ID ourselves, all as laid down in the show brochure. At the front entrance I can see a sniffer dog and handle; and bag searches at tables. As Dave says, it’s the sort of measures you would expect at a show. Noticeable too is the way the security’s done, with customer service and by smartly-dressed staff. This is after all a showcase for jewels; while for purely security reasons the consultants may want to make Fort Knox, they appreciate that everything, security included, has to look good; and not clash visually. Dave for example is wearing grey suit, black shoes, and furled umbrella, as the sky is grey and by the middle of the day it’s raining over London. He’s well aware that security of the show does not start or end at the perimeter. For one thing, just as the exhibitors may show elsewhere – at Basle for example – so the criminals might travel from country to country following the jewellery industry’s calendar. As Dave pointed out, he and his men know well that the criminals work as hard as they do. The criminals may target exhibitors after they leave a show, as Dave set out in a single glossy ‘security update’ sheet for exhibitors. A ploy by criminals may be to put a nail in a tyre in a parked car. The criminals will know the exhibitor will have to stop; and then they can assault the jeweller. As a well-known venue in the capital, there is a terrorist threat as with other places, ‘but the big thing is distraction thefts’, as Dave adds, ‘and we suffer greatly from South American distraction thieves.’ Much of the covert work seeking to identify and locate such thieves is done at hotels; railway stations; and retailers selling high-value jewellery. Exhibitors have a telephone number they can ring to pass on anything suspicious they see; and Searchers can text exhibitors security information, such as the descriptions of suspects. Dave wondered aloud if people realised how serious the South American crime was – also doing bag snatches, pick-pocketing. Well-reported are thefts from London jewellers in opening hours by pairs on motorcycles. Searchers have taken measures against such criminals; for one thing, motorcycles are banned.
Inside Earls Court 2, having shown our passes, Dave introduced me to John Beasley, and together they showed me the Searchers temporary control room. The operatives – the control room operator, and the overt and covert patrollers – face not only what you can call the professional thief, who will try to carry out a distraction thief, by sleight of hand, and then maybe passing the stolen gem to a colleague. Local thieves may try to enter, merely because the event is near them; they might be looking to grab a plasma screen, or whatever is in front of them. Or, opportunists may pretend to be a jeweller, and try to gain entry and once inside ‘try their arm’. As Dave says, ‘the internet is wonderful for background checking’. If someone applies to be a visitor or a stand-holder, you can use an internet service such as Google Earth to see if the jewellery shop they claim as their address, is truly where they claim it is. Or: criminals may drive to the event in an ambulance or emergency vehicle, and seek entry that way. Hence a procedure for genuine 999 vehicles to follow. Or: criminals may seek to get round the ‘front door’ security by hiding jewels in the rubbish, and taking the stolen goods out in genuine rubbish, during re-stocking by caterers or cleaners. Searchers have thought of that one, too. Among other things, there is a ‘sterile time’, outside the show hours, when anyone in the place overnight may be subject to searches in an ‘airlock’. As Dave points out, that is not a reflection on the contractors or whoever’s at the venue overnight, but the airlock search proves that the person so searched is ‘clean’.
Or, criminals may seek to plunge the site into darkness, and carry out crime in the confusion, Hence Searchers’ emergency planning of scenarios. Searchers do make some physical changes to the venue – bringing in some locks, for instance; and wired and wireless intruder alarms for parts of the site after show hours. A store is made for jewellery, if an exhibitor wishes to leave property on the site, run by a manned guarding company. I noted that the control room made much use of pan, tilt and zoom – some of the cameras are domes with 36x optical zoom – to do surveillance of people before they reach the venue. So besides using CCTV for early identification of suspects, at the outer perimeter, Searchers – using Dallmeier digital recorders – also seek evidential-quality images. Searchers have provided footage to police for cases that have lead to prison terms for jewel thieves.
I was in time for the first show seminar, about security. Mark Beale, crime prevention co-ordinator of the Met Police’s Flying Squad; and Helen Mackay, director of security Europe for Tiffany and Co, were the speakers. They described work – mirroring the collaboration by police and retail bookmakers – on security guidelines for jewellery shops. It was striking that the threats and counter-measures as described by the two speakers mirror retail loss prevention generally. Jewellery retailers may feel that their job is to sell their goods, and may find it hard to get police interest – or even to know who to ring to pass on any intelligence; while police argue that retailers should do more to talk to each other, because if a thief is thwarted at one high street shop, the chances are he will try to steal from another. As Mark Beale summed up: “One of the things we have been keen to do with all the sectors we work with, is work collaboratively.”
Likewise, the various parties behind the IJL show work together. Around 1.30pm, the drizzle had set in. Outside Earls Court 2, the opening hour queue had gone down and outside the entrance were the people as at any show who come out for a breather. A limousine drew up, the chauffeur got out, and opened a door for a woman passenger to step into the show. Dave Easy introduced me to Tony Hawkins, security and traffic manager at Earls Court Exhibition Centre. He’s worked for the venue for 25 years, and as he told me, the appeal is the variety of events there. Even on that Sunday, besides the jewellery show, next door there was a students-lifestyle event open; and PLASA, a show for lighting, was setting up to open on the Tuesday. Tony began working on the traffic side, then took over the control room, and security and medical sections. “My main role at Earls Court is traffic management, pedestrian movement, and ensuring that evens are safe and secure, working with various security companies, and making sure that they provide all the right documentation, risk assessment; and health and safety.” On the electronic security side, he has some 120 cameras, some fixed, some pan and tilt; and a Cardax access control system that allows a quick shutting of the building if necessary. Likewise, a fire or bomb threat may require an evacuation. Some events, the risk in the main is of theft of goods on show, whether by opportunists, or in a more organised way; at other events, the risks may arise from the very size of the crowds; or terrorism. As Tony put it: “Each event will bring its own issues.” No two weeks are the same. He said: “Sometimes it isn’t the size of the event but the number of events we hold. We can hold up to four or five shows at any time, and be in different periods of letting in and out. It puts a lot of strain on our car parks, the external roads and public roads for people getting to the venue. Because we are in west London, what we do as a venue as regarding some events, it has a major impact on the road networks, certainly from Warwick Road going up the Embankment; and then Lillie Road and Old Brompton Road. If they become clogged, it doesn’t take long for the rest of west London to come to a stand-still.” And need I add that Earls Court is an Olympic venue next summer, for volleyball?! As for the Olympics, Tony said: “We have just had the test event.” Earls Court alone – giving a clue as to the sheer size of the 2012 Games around the capital – will host thousands of people; competitors, media, spectators, who will need to come in and out of the venue each day. “So it’s a big undertaking.” Hence the venue will not allow vehicle deliveries; and people will have to go through airport-style screening, as at the main Olympic Park.
About Dave Easy: Essex-based, he served in the Met Police and retired in 1996 as a detective chief inspector. He’s a member of the Association of Security Consultants. Visit –
