Crime does pay

At long last common sense has prevailed and someone in authority is talking about a householder being able to defend his property with force without fear of being sued – and not before time.

My personal answer to this is simple: If you don't want to be shot, or stabbed, or beaten senseless with a big club then do not attempt to break into my house. I fully agree that if I carry a weapon onto the street then I should be held responsible. If I were to carry a club, a knife or a gun into a public area then I should also carry the threat of the death penalty with me. Once again the logic is simple – no gun, no knife, no club – no death penalty ... the choice is yours and mine.

I know that these laws and rules were brought in to protect the innocent but haven’t they gone too far? It gets a bit daft when a thief can break into your property and then take you to court for grievous bodily harm if you tweak his ear trying to restrain him. I fully accept we must have some sort of restriction and that was defined as "reasonable force". It ‘s just that in recent years some of our politically correct do-gooders have got their knickers in a twist about the rights of the burglar, and as usual they have pushed common sense over the cliff.

PC attitude keeps us in business!

On the other hand, perhaps we in the security industry should see the benefits of the system as it currently is. We are in the business of protecting property, and the public pay us a lot of money each year to do so. If they are going to actually make crime NOT pay then we should watch ourselves – we could become redundant!

Thieves and burglars only follow that profession because it is easy and profitable. The security industry has, to a great extent, made it less easy for the criminal, but thanks to the do-gooders and the flag wavers for the criminal's rights, crime is still profitable ... and we have an opportunity to make a living fighting it.

I recently attended a seminar on "Working Together to Reduce Business Crime". During the seminar the idea of applying fixed penalties for the crime of robbery was brought up. Yes, someone in authority has actually suggested this. The suggestion was that if they steal up to £200 then a fixed penalty of £80 should be imposed. I don’t know what planet these people are on but that sounds like a good profit margin to me and final proof that crime does pay. I mean, all you would have to do is walk into a shop or off licence, stick a gun over the counter and demand £200 (no more than that or, I presume, the fixed penalty price would go up). You bank the money and then go to police, confess the crime, pay the £80 fixed penalty and go home with a clean slate having paid your debt to society. That seems like a good profit margin to me – £120 for 15 minutes work!

How long before robbery and burglary becomes an "honest" profession with a trade association and representation in parliament?

Open invitation to the thief
As I sit and write this column two things strike me – on the local radio news there is an item saying that the council have had to disconnect the power to the Christmas trees in town so that the vandals don't electrocute themselves. I would be more inclined to put an electric fence round so that they DO electrocute themselves. Also – the management of my local shop-cum-filling station across the street have just decided to start building the extension they have been planning. Now, here’s a shop that has a ram raid once a month, so what do they do? They erect scaffolding all round the place. This is a one storey building with an almost flat roof with skylights in it. The scaffolding ends at roof level with a set of boards to walk on. All they have missed is the sign that says ‘Please help yourself’.

Now perhaps we can begin to see the reasoning behind the idea of doing a risk assessment as part of the survey for security.

The shop managers are very good at running their business, the builders are probably just as good at their jobs, but it is fairly obvious that they have little idea of security or they have been badly advised. Even the thickest bozo in the security industry would have spotted that one ... well I spotted it, didn't I?

There are good reasons for letting the security specialist give full and sound advice (even if the customer didn't ask for it). The general public and security buyer in general has undervalued our industry for some time, but now we have a requirement called up by EN 50131 to justify our specifications by producing a risk assessment ... and it gives us a unique opportunity to get a foot in the door to upgrade our professional standing.

Over the next few years we are going to see some fundamental changes in the way we run our industry. Gone are the days when we could let the customer decide how much detection they thought they needed or how much they could afford and we gave them as much cover as they paid for. Gone are the days of leaving great lumps of a building without alarm cover to keep costs down. In the new world of EN 50131 we will have to do a survey AND a risk assessment, and then offer a specification accordingly.

Of course, there will still be customers who know better and specify their own systems, and there will still be alarm companies that will ignore the standards and cut corners, but they will be on dangerous ground. Now, if the worst comes to the worst and we get a break-in to a property and it is then discovered that the alarm cover is not adequate or has been cut to suit the customer's purse, then the insurance companies have an opening to sue the alarm company.

If it failed to give a risk assessment and, at least, offered to provide reasonable and adequate cover, the European Standard could be held up in court to highlight the company's failure. As always the answer is simple – learn your trade properly, give good cover and service and, above all, write it all down and keep a record.

I can foresee the gap widening between the good companies who work to the standards and those who don't, and this could provide the insurance companies with the opportunity to tighten up even further on their requirements for a company to be inspectorate approved. This has already started to happen on the CCTV front. For years the police and insurance people have ignored the CCTV installer, but now with the advent of BS8418 and the ability to get a URN on a detector-driven CCTV system, the need for CCTV installers to get themselves approved has just spiralled upwards. Times are changing and the installation sector must find new ways to sell its products and adapt to some fundamental changes that have been long overdue.

Speaking of changes and the growing need to be approved – I note that both the SSAIB and the NSI have recently had to move premises. In both cases this represents growth and the need for more admin space. The SSAIB have rented bigger offices at the same address. For the NSI things were a little more complicated. It has been known for some time that they were overcrowded, but there was nowhere to expand to. The decision was, to some extent, taken from their hands when the landlord sold the building to a new owner. After considering all aspects, another property was found to buy. The move was planned with military-style attention to detail and was painlessly achieved over the course of a long weekend just before Christmas.

By the time you read this both inspectorates should have settled down into their new homes.

Help file makes panel a beater

For years I have held the belief that you get what you pay for and there is no such thing as a racing bargain. I have, however, been proven wrong from time to time, as I was with the old Optima panel. I was convinced it was too cheap to be any good. It was only with reluctance that I started using it a short time before I sold my company and was surprised to find that it was reliable and sound. This was confirmed when Tony Keenan (who I was teaching for at the time) said: "Yes, they are a cracking good little panel and, do you know, they are making 35,000 a month".

At that point the truth dawned – they don't make that many panels per month if they are a load of crap. The returns and failures would have put them out of business.

Then, just before Christmas, I received an invite to visit a factory in Liverpool and have a look round. The invite came from Graham Whitehead, the former owner/director/designer and mainstay of the old ADE company that made the Optima panel, and he is back in business with a company called MDT.

It was just like old times when I walked in. Over a pot of coffee or two we discovered a surprising number of points in the past where our respective careers have touched and the industry people we both knew. Then he showed me his new Avanti-XP panel.

Panel manufacturing is like leapfrog . Each new panel hops over its competitor and offers new features and benefits. Graham's Avanti-XP panel offers all the usual stuff like a built in modem and up/download facilities but then it offers a couple of extras. It will send a text message to your phone when the system is unset so that you know when the kids have got home safely or a variety of other uses. For the seller of alarm systems this should be a clincher. But for me, an ex-installer who has in the past taken over many systems from other people, the best feature is a built-in help file.

The help file is available via the LCD remote key pad and I would have killed for this facility as both an installer and an inspector.

Every inspector knows the feeling when the installer says "I am not familiar with this panel" and proceeds to delve into the instruction book – if it hasn’t been lost by the customer. Now it explains in simple language what each function is and how it works. If the idea is so obvious how come I haven't seen it before?

Then (with a gleam in his eye) Graham said: “Go on then – how much do you think?”

I guessed £80-100.

He laughed and said "Try £40", (and that includes a keypad and free software) and promptly gave me a copy to take home and play with.

I think other manufacturers will have to go some way to match his prices. And for those of us who dislike seeing our national product out-sourced to the Pacific rim, this is made in Liverpool.

* Mike Lynskey is a former proprietor and independent inspector of alarm systems. He is now Silver Systems Support Manager with the NSI. The personal views expressed should not be taken as the opinions of the NSI. Email Mike on: mike.lynskey@virgin.net