GOOD SECURITY FIRMS

Article from the Liverpool Daily Post

Overview

This article describes how legitimate security operators are being harmed by the bad image of security firms. Peter Quinlivan, MD of Crime Management Services.

Good security firms ´harmed by bad image.´

A LIVERPOOL security firm boss believes the image of the industry highlighted in the leaked memo from Chief Constable Norman Bettison is harming legitimate operators.

Peter Quinlivan, 36, consultant with Liverpool-based Crime Management, said the Government needed to step in and support law-abiding businesses.

In his leaked memo, Mr Bettison said more than a third of the 110 private security firms in the region had principals with serious criminal convictions.

That statistic supports the popularly held view that the Merseyside security industry is littered with links to organised crime.

But Mr Quinlivan said: “There is certainly a lot of stigma attached to the security industry. We have even changed our company name to drop the word 'security' because of that stigma. Legitimate businesses need support from the Government and the police. We want to become part of the policing family. To use old terminology, we want to be deputised.”

“I have been to France to see how the security industry works out there. Often a security firm will be called out to an incident long before the police will.”

The government has announced radical plans to create an “extended police family” with increased involvement for private security firms but the move is being resisted by many within the police force.

Mr. Quinlivan's firm, which employs 70 people and guards Liverpool FC's trophies, was awarded a Gold Award by the Government's Security Watchdog last November to mark the quality of their service.

“We provide quality but we are struggling a bit because we are that bit more expensive. Others are paying their staff just above the minimum wage,” he said.

Lord Brian MacKenzie, president of the Joint Security Industry Council, and security adviser to former Home Secretary Jack Straw, said: “We have been trying to get rid of the cowboys for some time. There are various problems in the industry involving organised gangsters and drug running. It tarnishes the reputations of others.”