Shoplifters: Caught on Camera aired on ITV in September, featuring the former head of security at Selfridges, Peter Vorberg.
At the recent British Retail Consortium annual crime conference in London, security and loss prevention managers took a dim view of the programme, and said they would not co-operate with such a show. For instance they objected to the way, they said, it showed shoplifters how to use a foil-lined bag to get round security measures. <br><br>The distortion of what private security does, because of the mainstream media’s own agenda or prejudices, is hardly new. In a seminar about door stewarding and the leisure industry at IFSEC in 2000, Stefan Hay then of SITO told the audience that he spent half an hour on the telephone to a woman from Granada, the ITV company behind a Ross Kemp drama. Suffice to say that all he said went in one ear and out of the other – as the 2000 drama Hero of the Hour showed. It starred Kemp in the everyday story of a security guard who foiled an armed robbery, but gave in to temptation and stole the money the crooks left behind (because he needed the money to treat his daughter’s disfiguring birthmark). The media made him a national hero, but he had a conscience, not to mention the crooks after him.<br><br>Such is TV drama. But should private security shun TV factual programme-makers? Why let police have all the publicity! Also, well-made TV may deter the opportunist shop thief, bearing in mind (as was said at the BRC event) that criminals are well-informed already. The publicity may even act as a free recruitment advert for people who otherwise would not think of themselves as a store detective. <br><br>If you are careful what you say, and certainly don’t say anything damaging about your employer or industry, and if you set out your terms, you can work happily with documentary-makers. <br><br>Maxine Fraser is Project Co-ordinator Retailers Against Crime in Scotland, at the Scottish Business Crime Centre (SBCC). She starred in the 2005 documentary Secrets of the Shoplifters, made by Deborah Davies, though viewers did not see Maxine’s face – on purpose; she did not want shoplifters to be able to recognise her. The C4 programme ended memorably with Maxine confronting a seller of shoplifted goods at a Scottish morning market. She told Professional Security: “When I worked with Deborah Davies – I asked for a preview before the programme went out – and they obliged – amendments had to be made etc … and it was no problem at all. I have also worked with the BBC (Reporting Scotland) and did not have a problem. I would work with Channel 4 and BBC again.”
