Raid-control is a police and security industry partnership initiative supported by the British Security Industry Association, the British Retail Consortium and several other partners across the security and retail sectors. It aims to tackle the general lack of awareness among retailers of Best Practice security measures and training – a lack of awareness which undoubtedly contributes to the high number of commercial robberies continuing to hinder UK businesses.
There is a defined need to improve standards by creating national guidelines on security for retail premises, and to encourage retailers to adopt such guidelines as an integral part of running their business.
The Raid-control initiative involves the use of five minimum standards to protect staff from violent robberies: training in robbery awareness, minimising available cash, making use of time-delay systems, cameras in operation and deploying till security devices.
To date, Raid-control has been rolled-out to 12 police service areas across the UK, among them Greater Manchester Police, West Yorkshire and the Metropolitan Police Service.
Its success was recently evidenced when a robbery was foiled in St Albans, Hertfordshire.
Effectiveness of Raid-control
Two robbers have been jailed for a total of seven and a half years at St Albans Crown Court for an attempted robbery at Bradford & Bingley’s branch in Hertford last August, during which the activation of a number of Raid-control measures resulted in their arrest.
Three men entered the bank and demanded that staff open the safe. A fully-trained, quickthinking cashier operated the time-delay system fitted to the safe, denying the robbers access to the bulk of cash.
As they waited for the safe to unlock, the robbers turned their attentions to the tills and stole a small amount of money. They then fled the bank after being distracted. A till security device was concealed with the stolen cash and, as the robbers left the branch, it was activated.
Bright red smoke billowing from the bag in which the money had been placed damaged the banknotes, covering the robbers in red dye and drawing attention to them among members of the public in the vicinity at the time. Twenty minutes later, the men were arrested in their ‘getaway’ car on the A10 near Cheshunt after a witness had reported part of the registration number attributed to the Renault Megane.
This Case Study amply demonstrates the significant results Raid-control can realise, and the effectiveness of using the combined five minimum standards laid down by the initiative.
Each of these measures played their own part in the disruption and detection of this particular crime. In essence, that’s the secret of Raid-control’s ongoing success.
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