Cut Fence, Dead Camera, Expired Pass
It is 02:40 and you are the only guard on duty at a 4-acre bonded warehouse on the outskirts of the city. The site has one main gate with a boom barrier and a sliding gate, a 2.4 m chain-link fence on three sides, and a brick wall on the north. During your round you find that a 60 cm section of chain-link at the south-east corner has been cut and bent back, and there is a fresh footprint in the mud just inside the fence. The camera covering that corner shows a black screen on the monitor in your gate cabin; the recorder sits under the cabin desk. A white truck is waiting at the main gate. The driver says he is delivering "URGENT" cartons for the morning shift and hands you a gate pass dated yesterday. Your post orders say "no entry without a valid pass" and "the guard will not leave the main gate unattended". The supervisor's mobile is switched off, and the client's warehouse manager is not on site.
1. Set out, in order, what you do in the first five minutes, and explain why that order.
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Priority order: life, then containment, then evidence.
- Do not leave the gate. Walk back to the cabin and close the sliding gate, lower the boom. An unattended gate is an open invitation, and the post order exists because the gate is the site's main control point.
- Call the police control room (100/112). Give the full address, the entry point, and the words "fence cut, possible intruder inside". Do not speculate about numbers.
- Call the agency's 24x7 control room or the client's site manager, not only the supervisor. One switched-off phone is not an escalation dead end.
- Make the site visible and noisy. Switch on perimeter floodlights, use the PA. An intruder who knows he has been detected usually leaves without confrontation. A single unarmed guard must not search 4 acres in the dark; that is how guards get hurt and how gates get left open.
- Handle the truck where it is - outside the barrier, engine off, nothing opened.
- Observe the fence from a distance. Do not walk over the footprint. Note the exact time, the position of the cut relative to the corner post, the direction of the print, and whether there is any disturbed ground along the fence line.
- Record it immediately in the logbook with 24-hour times, while it is fresh.
Movement inside the fence is a police matter once reported. The guard's job is to hold the gate, preserve the scene and keep a clear record of times and actions.
2. The truck driver becomes angry and threatens to drive through the barrier. Can you let him in? What is the correct handling?
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No entry, and no physical fight over a barrier.
The pass is objectively expired, "urgent" is not an exception the guard can grant, and the post order is written. Letting the vehicle in would mean the guard varied a site instruction on his own authority; if the load is later found short, or the truck is not what it claims, the guard is the person who opened the gate.
Correct handling:
- Keep the barrier down and stand to the side of the vehicle, never in front of it. A guard is not a traffic bollard, and being run over is not part of the duty.
- Explain the reason and the remedy: "This pass is dated yesterday; I need the warehouse manager's authorisation."
- Offer the phone: call the warehouse manager, transport supervisor or agency control room. If authorisation comes by SMS, note the name, designation, time and message text in the register.
- On authorisation, complete the full check: driver's licence and photo ID, consignment note and seal number, cab and boot search, under-vehicle mirror check, in/out times in the register.
- If authorisation does not come, ask him to park outside on the road in a safe place and wait, and inform the police control room if he blocks the gate or threatens anyone.
- If he drives at the barrier, move clear, note the number plate and description, and call 100/112.
On detention: a private person may detain someone only in the narrow situation of a non-bailable offence committed in his presence, and must hand the person to police at once. A pass dispute is not that situation, and holding the driver or his keys could amount to wrongful restraint.
3. Next morning the police ask what happened at the fence and want the CCTV. Describe how you preserve the cut fence and the recording, and what you record in your notebook.
Read the worked answer
The fence area is a crime scene.
- Cordon it with tape or cones at 3–5 m so staff do not trample the footprint; the print in mud is the most fragile evidence on the site.
- Do not touch the cut wire; tool marks on the mesh and the cut ends matter, and handling destroys them.
- Photograph from outside the cordon, with a scale and the time noted. If rain threatens, cover the print with a box or sheet raised on supports, not a cloth laid on it, and record that you covered it and when.
- Note weather, lighting and anything moved before you arrived.
The CCTV. The dead camera view is itself evidence of tampering or failure.
- Do not reboot, format or "fix" the recorder. Note the time the feed went black and whether other cameras are also down.
- Identify which cameras cover the gate, the yard and the approach road; export their footage for the relevant window to a fresh, empty drive.
- Record the file names, the export time, the camera IDs and the recorder clock, seal the drive in an envelope with your signature, and log who took it and from whom.
Notebook. Write factually: date, 24-hour times, exact location of the cut, your actions in sequence, who you called and at what time, the truck registration and the pass date, and the name and designation of every person you handed anything to. Get a receipt or GD number from the police when you hand over footage. Chain of custody means you can say, at every step, who held the item and when - if you cannot, the footage may be challenged later.