It has to be said that if someone set me the task of writing a totally unworkable procedure, then DD243 and the ACPO policy would be an excellent place to get a few pointers.
DD243 and the ACPO policy – it may sound like a big blockbuster movie (like Jason and the Argonauts), but in our industry its more like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs … almost as unbelievable.
First off, before anyone starts writing in and complaining that I am having another go at ACPO, let me set the record straight. I have every sympathy with ACPO. False alarms from our systems are costing the taxpayer upward of GB pound 100m a year in wasted police time and it’s not rocket science to work out how much else the police could do with that wasted cash. I know some of the big nationals are trying to make amends by presenting the police with brand new cars that can be tested to destruction by chasing round after the false alarms that we ourselves cause, but two wrongs don’t make a right.
(On the car buying front, what’s the next stage? Supplying the police with a roof rack, ladder and a bag of tools and saying, “While your there, just nip up and disconnect the bell until we can get one of our engineers out”.. Personally, I think it a very generous offer to supply the police with cars free of charge – until we come to the company logo plastered all over the car in foot high letters. It somehow takes the goodwill out of the gesture and has the effect of suggesting to the public that the police are buying second hand cars from the alarms industry.)
Small shop, big problem
But, back to DD243. At a recent meeting of inspectors a ticklish problem came to light. It was how to comply to the new rules with a small, one room lock-up shop. Let’s set the stage – the shop is in a rough area so the insurance people want to see police response (with or without the sign writing!). The shop sells sweets, newspapers and cigarettes so the risk is high. It is a new system so it has to comply with the new ACPO policy and be confirmed. Now we come to the problems.
It is a very small one-room shop with no storeroom or cupboards. The front window is covered by a roller shutter, leaving the only access as the entrance door … therefore, the whole alarm has to be on the entry-exit circuit. There were two detectors (one dual-tech) to give the sequential alarm, and a vibration detector on the door to detect a physical attack.
So, when the thief comes, he attacks the front door and the vibrator – sorry, the “vibro” – signals the first alarm. Next he pushes the door open and triggers the entry timer. This now cancels the sequential second alarm and the thieves have the run of the shop because the police are not coming, even when they have tripped the two internal detectors. In fact, they have tripped everything they can and the police are still not coming.
It is possible that the second alarm may be triggered after the end of the exit time because the code has not been entered, but can we be sure that it will? Have the manufacturers thought of that scenario and built something into the programme? And how many alarm companies will think to check that during commissioning?
Let’s take it a little further. The thief kicks the door in and all hell breaks loose with the sounders, so he legs it. The shop is left wide open and the system has to shut itself down after 20 minutes by law so does it try to rearm with the front door wide open and isolated? What now acts to start the entry time when the keyholder arrives? Now we add another factor, the system has a 30 minute “time window” before it fully resets and reverts back to first call. In the intervening ten minutes is it silent but not rearmed.
DD243 does not allow one detector to activate twice, so what happens if the thief decides to return after the bells have stopped but before the time window has expired?
Here we have two scenarios to look at:
1. He has the run of the shop with no fear of a police attendance; 2. He is met by the keyholder who is responding to the alarm.
We now have the one thing that no one wants – a confrontation. Oh its easy to make jokes about combat by torches, or trying to stun each other by throwing large bars of chocolate and packs of 200 ciggies, but there is the very real danger of physical injury to either party.
Of course when the situation was raised at our meeting (inspectors being what they are with an intense keenness in their profession), every man and his dog entered into the spirit of the situation and ploughed in with suggestion after suggestion.
CCTV confirmation? No, they would just pinch the camera, and anyway it would be too expensive.
Build a porch inside the door to shield the detectors so they could be taken off the entry route? No, the shop was not much larger that a porch anyway and it would block the till.
When the real ideas ran out…
Then their sense of humour took over – “Tell him to build the porch outside.”
“He could extend it out till it met the bus shelter that blocks the other half of the pavement.”
“Has he tried a big dog?”
“What, and have it eat all the chocolate!”
“Has he thought about audio confirmation?”
(Getting serious again) No, the insurance people don’t like it, it is not conclusive, it could hear the drunks outside of a night and could lead to all sorts of confusion.
This is the snag with audio confirmation; it can lead to confusion. Audio is brilliant for letting the customer talk to the ARC and give passwords etc, but the thief will probably be trying to make as little noise as possible whilst the sounders want to wake the dead. No, to make it work you have to have the system silenced and that defeats the object of scaring them off.
I will give you a parallel situation about confusion of sound from my Fire Brigade days … We had a call to a house fire one Boxing Day. The family (as usual) had gathered en-masse and there were about 17 people, including kids, in a house designed for four. After an evening of merriment and copious quantities of drink the women of the house decided to indulge in the typical Yorkshire bedtime activity – a fry-up supper. Pans were soon filled with the leftovers of the Christmas dinner and browning nicely – until one of them had the idea of adding some whiskey for flavour and the bloody lot went up.
When we arrived the family was out in the street and the kitchen was bringing a whole new meaning to the words “central heating”. By this time the smoke was down to about two feet from the floor so we were crawling along the back of the settee dragging our hose pipes when we heard the sound of gunfire. When an aerosol canister explodes it can sound just like gunfire. You get your head down … and we dropped to the floor. ( I have seen a canister fly through the air like a miniature Exocet missile when the top has burned off and the contents caught fire, which prompted the comment “By ‘eck! – that were shiftin'” and, from the officer in charge, “You would if your arse were on fire, now keep going”.)
Anyway, we then discovered that the Grandad of the family was still sat on the settee, his head down on his knees trying to watch a war movie on the telly … that was the gunfire we heard! His protest when we finally dragged him bodily into the street was “the Jerries couldn’t shift me in two world wars an’ I’m not shiftin’ now”.
The point is, you can’t always rely on the sound you hear being what you think it is.
Whichever way you look at it, DD243 and the ACPO policy has presented us with some king-sized headaches and some virtually insurmountable problems. This was borne out at a DD243 seminar when a police officer who was inundated with questions he couldn’t answer said words to the effect of “Well, there it is, you’ll just have to do your best with it”, and left the stage!
It is far too late to back down and rescind the ACPO policy now. Manufacturers and installers alike have put too much effort into the matter and the public are having to pay for it. But, in cases like the one mentioned above, perhaps we could have the leeway to adapt and do what we can to protect the customer, his property and the insurance people who have to foot the bill.
It is far too easy to belittle the efforts of others and then be unable or unwilling to offer a solution so I have always tried to offer my alternative ideas to qualify my comments. Unfortunately in this case I can see problems, failings and unworkability, but for once in my life I am stuck for an answer. Have they finally found a way to silence the Yorkshire Mouth?
Well, I take the biscuit
I have to offer my sincere apologies to a Lancashire lass that I have yet to meet! I am currently involved in a recruiting mission for the ICON scheme and my job is to visit companies who are interested in joining, spend a day with them and go through all the aspects of management and installation in a sort of “mock” inspection so that when the real inspector comes it has removed all the unexpected problems.
There is something about the word “Inspector” that conjures up misapprehension, fear of failure and even terror in some installers when they are facing an inspection for the first time. (In one case in my days as an inspector it had the effect of being a laxative!) So, if I can remove the unknown and the fear of failure then I feel I have succeeded in my task.
However, it could be said that on occasion I have been too successful, as was the case when I visited Mike Davis and Bob Lord in Burnley. I was soon made welcome, and plied with coffee and we got down to business. Very soon a packet of custard creams was opened and by this time I was in heaven. Here I was, doing my all time favourite job in the industry, (talking to applicants), sat in an easy chair, talking to couple of experienced lads setting up on their own with all the coffee and biscuits I could eat.
The day went well, more coffee and biscuits were consumed and I left at teatime with the feeling that I had made a couple of new friends for life and done a good job into the bargain.
When I called Mike later he said I had got him into trouble. After I had left on the day of the visit Mike’s wife came home, went straight to the cupboard and asked her husband “Where’s all my custard creams, and where are the chocolate digestives and the bourbon creams?” It appears that I had eaten the lot, or most of them! So to Mrs Davis, whom I have never met, I offer a sincere and grovelling apology.
Hope to see you at the Security Roadshow in Manchester on October 10. If your visiting the show drop in to the NSI stand for a chat … but I can’t absolutely promise there’ll be any biscuits!
