ProfSec27-09ps

Retail Security
➬
continued: from previous page
Pictured this page, from top,
the police dog gets some
loving; the mall’s clock
tower beside some of the
car parking; and Sunday
morning before the Lakeside
doors opened for business,
everyone got there early
for a group photo - police,
Lakeside patrollers, even
the local bus company and
posties
Photos by Mark Rowe; and
courtesy of Essex Police
see that looks suspicious or just out
of place from the norm. The inspector
knows this works, from experience.
He told a story of being invited to
see BTP in London. He and another
Essex officer went in plains clothes to
meet the BTP, on a station platform,
naturally enough. While waiting,
a platform member of staff came
up to the pair; were they all right,
they were asked, as two trains had
called and they’d not got on. Adams
knew that person in a fluorescent
jacket - whether railway employee
or cleaner or whoever - had been
Servator-trained, because if he’d been
a ‘hostile’, he’d have been ‘busted’.
For him, as for others doing Servator,
it empowers people, and it’s cost
effective.
A dog on the mall
Lakeside does have a police lodge
and a small police team; the Servator
deployments are on their ‘manor’,
to use an Essex term. He described
the security at Lakeside as ‘layers of
an onion’, that warranted police and
the intu security are parts of. As a
counter-terrorism security coordinator,
Insp Adams plans for public events
against any terrorist threat. As he says,
he could make Lakeside the safest
place in the world: “You might not
be able to get in it; but it would be
as safe as you like.” As he went on,
retail wants customers through the
door, while maintaining safety. To
leave him for a minute: Servator, at
Lakeside as at earlier places featured
by Professional Security, takes care
not to scare people, but rather to
inform; and the messaging on the
mall ad boards and the sight of cops
with long-barrelled guns on patrol
is an acknowledgement by the malls
that they cannot pretend bad things
won’t happen on their ground. Even
if Lakeside looks calm and well-kept,
and it does, social media rumours,
however nonsensical (such as body
bags being delivered to a mall) swirl.
Insp Adams said that a few years ago,
a police dog on the mall at Lakeside
‘would not have happened’.
What’s changed
Two things, then have changed. One,
shoppers are not only not put off by
overt security, but after the Paris 2015
and other terror attacks on public
places, they are pleased to see it. Two,
malls have understood that for their
own reputation, and for visitors to feel
safe, such extra, visible security is
required. One of the welcome features
of Servator is that it’s evidencebased;
police don’t do things and
not others because it just feels right.
Significantly, Insp Adams said that
Lakeside do regular customer surveys,
‘and I am sure I am not speaking out
of turn when I say in summary their
feedback is that the members of the
public are extremely supportive of see
police officers deploying with security
staff at intu Lakeside, because it
makes them feel comfortable about