Greater Manchester Police robbery initiative

Date published: 22/09/2006

Greater Manchester Police and the security industry launched Vanguard  on Thursday 21 September, a joint initiative designed to increase protection from robbery for security staff, cash in transit and financial and commercial premises such as banks, post offices, supermarkets, betting shops and garages.

Through the initiative police and security groups will more effectively use their resources to fight this type of crime that is becoming increasingly violent. Vanguard will tackle this through better training, and shared good practice and intelligence.

For example, Vanguard will carry out overt and covert surveillance to deter and disrupt criminal activity. As well as planned escort duties, police car patrols that are on general duties and come across unescorted security vans will be ordered to escort them under the "follow that van " scheme. These tactics will make it harder for criminals to plan their activities around unescorted cash deliveries.

Vanguard will also concentrate on detecting and bringing criminals to justice through enhanced investigation and evidence gathering and sharing.

It has been developed in response to both an increase in commercial robberies, and also the level of violence threatened and used to commit them by professional criminals. Vanguard is also aimed at influencing Government policy to get these crimes reclassified giving them a higher priority within the police, and allowing the courts to hand out harsher sentences.

In 2005 there were 836 attacks nationally with 170 couriers being injured and six, along with a member of the public, being shot. In the GMP area there were 116 attacks in 2005, and in 2006 to date there has been a 25 per cent increase compared to the same period last year. These crimes are seeing a national increase and are concentrated in metropolitan areas, such as Greater Manchester, that have a high level of commercial activity.

Vanguard has been prioritised as there is evidence that the proceeds of commercial robberies are increasingly being used to finance other criminal activities including drug dealing, which itself encourages drug users to commit burglary, theft and other crimes to fund their habit. Commercial robbery therefore has a disproportionate effect on crime levels in the country.

In a bid to break this link, Greater Manchester Police will be targeting the assets of armed robbers, and anyone who benefits from their activities to ensure that proceeds are not used to fund further criminal activity.

Greater Manchester Police work closely with the security industry on covert initiatives and is also a partner in SaferCash, a national centre for information and intelligence sharing. SaferCash was established by the industry a year ago, and has handled more than 550 suspicious incidents, and contributed to the arrest of a significant number of criminals.

Greater Manchester Police Deputy Chief Constable, David Whatton said: "These crimes are committed by criminals who do not hesitate to use extreme violence against innocent people who are just doing their job. We know that these robberies are linked to other crimes ranging from stealing cars to drug dealing."

"Vanguard will see us tackling these thugs on many fronts – on the streets, in the courts, and in our communities – we will make it even more difficult to commit these ugly crimes and prove to them that their reward can only be a long prison sentence. "

"With Vanguard we are totally committed to making the security and commercial industries safer places to work."

David Dickinson, Chief Executive of the British Security Industry Association, comments: "Cash-in-transit provides an essential public service delivering cash to the high street, which keeps the local economy running. Local people working in the CIT industry are being threatened with violence and sometimes attacked during these robberies, suffering injuries and trauma which affects both them and their families."

"We are pleased that Greater Manchester Police is working in partnership with us through the launch of this proactive initiative that sends a clear message to criminals that CIT crime won’t be tolerated."