David Robinson, after a 31-year police career including personal protection of members of the royal family, is coming up to five years in private security.
He talks about his job as head of security at motorway service station group Welcome Break, over a cup of Professional Security coffee.
For a man who has made a second career in private security after years in the Metropolitan Police, it’s perhaps appropriate that David Robinson begins with what he describes as a ‘huge success’ – placing of police community support officers (PCSOs) in some of the Welcome Break service stations. The first PCSO was at Corley, on the M6 near Coventry. David recalls: “It was a joint venture between Welcome Break and Warwickshire Police, and it was funded jointly; and Warwickshire Police took a chance, I think, because there weren’t so many PCSOs around at that stage.” As an aside, the Warwickshire force also joint-funded PCSOs with Stratford District Council and a housing association called Touchstone; but as David says, it was a step for the police to work with a commercial company towards a PCSO. David describes a PCSO as ‘not the main solution, but another tool in the toolbox’. That is, Welcome Break installs physical and electronic security measures such as barriers on perimeter roads; good signage; improved lighting, CCTV and so on. David adds that whether a PCSO is at work at a motorway service station or on London’s Oxford Street, the officer offers high visibility, wearing a uniform that people can identify – and identify with the police – and it’s a sign that Welcome Break takes security of its properties seriously. David adds: “I think we do this because the service station areas are totally anonymous; it’s transient in terms of, it isn’t a destination; criminals, particularly, like their anonymity.” Welcome Break has 24 motorway service stations, and there are PCSOs at six. The idea of PCSOs has caught on, both at the service stations and in UK policing generally, so that police are approaching Welcome Break as much as Welcome Break are approaching police. David says that he had had a fear when the PCSOs were introduced that there would not be enough variation in the job. Quite the opposite; it’s the proverbial case of no two days being the same. For instance, the clientele is different each day. David says: “And I would say that motorway service stations are like a village, because you have shops, the garage; you have the forecourt, a hotel, lorries, truckers; you have a Game Zone [that is, a computer games area]. You obviously have catering; so it’s a wide variety of outlets.”
That means a multitude of security measures for the various sorts of retail, of the business? There is physical security – locks on doors, lighting, CCTV, cash management – in David’s words, “making sure that the cash goes from the till into the safe and subsequently to the bank”. He recalled the article in the October issue of Professional Security on a Europe-wide survey of crime against truckers – not a problem on Welcome Break’s sites, David says, pointing to the lighting and other security measures, and patrols by a contract security company. In other words, Welcome Break tries to offer truck drivers a good deal so that they stay customers. Staying on the subject of crime against haulage vehicles, David does add that given the free flow of vehicles across Europe, and you have a load surrounded by a trailer curtain; it is going to be vulnerable to theft; and it is a subject the service station chain has to keep looking at.
“In terms of crime, our biggest crime on the motorway is bilking, where people drive in and don’t pay for their petrol. And we have introduced different measures: ANPR, security personnel patrolling the garage, upgrading our CCTV; but unfortunately a lot of the vehicles invariably are on false number plates. Very often we find the number plate on the front of the car is different from that on the back. They aren’t licenced; the DVLA aren’t kept informed. And really we feel that villains drive cars; and if they nick our petrol, invariably there are other criminal offences associated with them, such as no driving licence; no insurance, no tax; and using the car to commit crime; and it seems to me that this is one place where we can really identify criminals.” Hence, he believes, automatic number plate recognition is a major resource for the future.
Another crime issue for the company is what David describes as gangs of criminals going up and down the motorway, making service stations their target, regarding the Game Zones as money boxes. A difficulty there, David admits, is that it is seen by some as a victimless crime.
All that said, David recalls that when he joined Welcome Break he did a customer survey to gauge users’ perceptions, “and most customers actually feel that motorway service stations are quite a safe place; and Welcome Break in particular”. His company, he adds, is the only motorway service station chain to employ a full-time security manager, going out of its way to make security an integral part of its business plan.
What of the personal safety of staff – is that an issue, given that it is often so for other retail and front-line staff? Not really, David replies: “We do have a problem from time to time when football fans descend en masse and try to intimidate staff, and try to raid shops. But invariably we are pretty well planned for that; we know when they are coming and make the necessary provisions. We do from time to time get our staff attacked, but it is rare in the extreme; and we do everything we can to reduce it, and to support our staff.” On that score, David mentions training for staff, for example in personal awareness, “and we get a lot of police forces to come in on a regular basis just to give rudimentary training, on what to look out for in a shoplifter; the law in relation to what you can and can’t do.” Given that there is staff turnover in the company, David Robinson has written a security manual for reference.
To be nosey, what sort of a working day or week does David have? He replies that the company has service stations from Somerset to London to Scotland. So yes, he does see a lot of motorways: “I do do about 50,000 miles a year. I advise on technical security in terms of the right CCTV, the right alarm systems, and access control, and bolts on doors. And I also do a fair amount of investigations, assisting general managers at perhaps the first stage of a disciplinary inquiry that might result in a criminal prosecution. “And I suppose my other main role is liaising on an almost permanent basis with the various police forces to keep the bridge between Welcome Break and various police forces.” He adds that while there are traffic police, crimes that occur on a service station fall on the patch of local police. That can mean that the service station can look to the police like a statistical blot on the rural landscape. David makes the point that Welcome Break has 80 million people a year passing through the doors, and crime as a percentage of the footfall is ‘absolutely minute’. And hence, as David says, customers see motorway service stations as a reasonably safe place to stop for a cup of tea and the loo.
David is, he adds, a sort of security consultant: “I am on call 24 hours a day; and you will not be surprised to learn that most of the problems happen at night; or in the evening; or at weekends; and I am available to give advice and if needs be to attend scenes and liaise.” He speaks also of being a persuader, to make the business case for taking security seriously, especially in light of terrorism. He does add: “Now the penny has finally begun to drop; I think companies that take security seriously are much better for it.”
This leads us to how David left the Met after a career including 20 years in personal protection, for this second career in private security (before Welcome Break he was for a year security manager at the Dorchester Hotel). And the differences between the police and business. One thing he says he had to learn quickly is that in business you have to make a business case for proposing something. He uses that word ‘persuader’ again; his job is to persuade the chief executive that he would probably make more money if he takes a long-term view and invests in security – “and that’s exactly what he [the chief exec] has done”. The security person, then, has to have the skills of a negotiator, a persuader, whereas in a disciplined organisation like the police or the armed forces, you give and take orders. The other side of the coin is that the business has to be minded to take security, crime prevention, on board?
David replies that the security climate today is a help; people are security-conscious. However that security-mindedness can go off the boil very quickly and people can revert to norm. Hence the security role of a persuader, to remind the business of the reason to do x y or z.
The London Evening Standard ran a feature on David Robinson in September, making much of his years protecting first the new Princess Diana, then Princess Anne; Prince Philip; and the Queen (the Standard published a photo of David in top hat walking behind the Queen at Ascot. David is impeccably dressed at interview in a dark suit and plain red tie.) He retired from the Met five years ago. He made the point in the Standard that private security is now a good career option, and takes the issue up again: “It can be very varied; I think you can specialise in a particular aspect of security; and people in the police are coming round to realising that you cannot have an omni-competent police constable; we are moving into the 21st century where specialism in the police service is important and it is a bit like that in the security world.” Private security, he adds, is hugely rewarding and, yes, an option for a young person. Equally, if you are bright, you can go a long way in the police. As the Standard reported, David left school at 15; worked in Selfridges as a trainee carpet buyer; progressed to assistant buyer at 17; had two years in the SAS Regiment of the Territorial Army (he is not in any private security industry bodies, but is a member of the Special Forces Club). At 20 he joined the Met. But to return to the point: for all the sophisticated technology around, “at the end of the day it is the security officer, male or female, that has an inquiring mind, that wants to understand human nature, that looks beyond what they are being told all the time.” That gets results, David adds, whether it’s investigating or protecting assets. And – David adds the previso of getting qualifications – there is the good career for a young person. He adds that as someone coming out of the police at quite a high rank, it can be quite an eye-opener to see how proficient and professional private security (and its individuals) are.
This interview has turned the Evening Standard’s on its head; the Standard for one of its job pages chose to make much of David’s years guarding members of the royal family, including world travel, and tacked on his current work at the end. You could say such a treatment is the standard (pardon the pun) starry-eyed reaction to anything about the royals. As David comments, he does not play the ‘royal card’. He will talk to you about those years, if asked, the part that is in the public domain, that is. He is who he is, and that includes his experience. But as he says, he did not get the job at Welcome Break because he knew the Queen, he got it because he could do the job. And has done.
