Protecting the vulnerable

At Blue Light, we feel that protecting vulnerable people we come into contact with is very important. As providers of front line services, our team are often the first point of contact for someone who my be vulnerable. It is our responsibility to deal with the issue proportionately and effectively. Its by adopting this view on vulnerability that makes our projects safer.

There are over 300,000 front line licensed operatives in the security industry. This is double the number of police officers we have in the UK. If we can all share more information with the police service, our clients and their customers will naturally be safer.

The term ‘vulnerable’ has many different interpretations in law and policy. Public agencies share the same broad definition, but private organisations will interpret its meaning differently. The two most common reason for a person to be categorised as vulnerable are age (young and old) and mental or physical disability.

Blue Lights interpretation of ‘vulnerable’ takes into account the main two categories. But we have included temporary vulnerability in our policy and practices. 

Being under the influence of drink or drugs can incapacitate and impair you to varying degrees and therefore increase your level of vulnerability. If a habitual criminal is inside a premises, customers are more vulnerable. The presence of a pick pocket will increase the risk of your customers being a victim of theft. The presence of a sex offender will increase your chances of being the victim of sexual offence.

In an ideal world we would already have knowledge and intelligence on the local criminals and their methods of operation. But sometimes we do not have that luxury and have to build the intelligence. The sharing of this intelligence with the police is vital. 

We found that there was a large gap in practices associated with sharing vital information with police services.

It would almost always involve a verbal account of a potential criminal offence. After which the ‘shelf life’ of the information was determined by the police.

We were aware of an incident whereby a lone drunk female was ejected from a bar due to her level of intoxication. The door supervisors were aware that this had made her vulnerable. They decided that the best thing to do would be to put her in a taxi and send her to the address on her driving licence.

Afew days later the venue was visited by the police who were investigating a rape allegation. The police explained that the taxi driver had been accused of sexually assaulting the female.

CCTV was checked but the details of the taxi could not been seen. The venue explained that the door supervisors had put the female in a taxi and felt that they had acted responsibly and beyond the ‘call of duty’. However, they neglected to record the details of the taxi and its driver. They neglected to inform a next of kin that the female was in such a state and was in need of care.

Having reviewed our internally policy around vulnerable people we felt more needed to be done to improve the safety of our customers. This ultimately benefits our clients as they have less chance of legal or PR issues as a result of the security teams actions.

Our vulnerable person forms allows staff to record the specific information around the concern for a person. They are encouraged to rationale why they believe the person to be vulnerable and what actions they intend to take to safeguard them. If a person refuses to provide their details, our team can add descriptions and any other information that may be beneficial.

Once the form is complete it is sent to a member of our management team to review. We can then share our information with the police. As the forms are carbonated, we can keep a copy and leave the other with the police. The forms are designed to assist police in using the information as they feel best. It could result in a crime report being generated or simply entered onto their intelligence database. 

If you are interested in our vulnerable person forms or feel your venue can benefit from our services please contact us at [email protected]