The Chained Fire Exit at 02:40
At 02:40 a lone guard on night patrol of a three-acre warehouse campus finds three things within ten minutes. The rear fire exit of Block C is fastened with a new chain and padlock from the outside - the company's own exits are never chained. CCTV camera 7 on the north wall has been rotated so that it faces the boundary wall. Near the perimeter wall behind Block C there are fresh tyre tracks and a 3-metre aluminium ladder lying flat in the grass, which does not belong to the site. The guard's radio is charging in the gate house, and the second guard is at the main gate 200 metres away with the only working torch. His own torch has a weak beam. Store room C holds 40 drums of solvent. There are no dogs and no fence sensors. It is his second week on the site. The SOP says only: 'patrol as per route, report anything unusual'.
1. Set out the guard's actions in the next ten minutes, in priority order, with the reason for each - and say what he must not do.
Read the worked answer
The order is safety, containment, evidence, report.
- Do not enter Block C. Forty drums of solvent, a weak torch and no radio is a combination that kills guards. He checks the building from outside only - light through windows, listen at the door, walk the outside face - and stays out.
- Reunite with the second guard or get backup before anything else. Two men with one good torch are safer than one man alone in the dark. Use a mobile phone since the radio is on charge, and call the shift supervisor from the gate house with a first brief report: chained exit, rotated camera, ladder, tyre tracks, no confirmation of intruders yet.
- Do an external perimeter sweep in pairs, torch on the wall line and the tracks, watching from a distance rather than walking over the marks. The purpose is to find out whether anyone is still inside the campus, not to confront anyone.
- Call the police (112) if there is any sign of forced entry or a person on site. A fire exit chained from the outside, a ladder and a camera deliberately turned to the wall is a break-in pattern, not an 'unusual event'. A guard cannot search a building; the police can.
- Leave camera 7 exactly as it is and note its position and the time. The DVR recording is evidence, and the manager should be told in writing within the hour to preserve that footage before it overwrites.
- Post himself at Block C's entrance once relief is available, to deny access until the supervisor and police arrive, and start a running log with times.
Must not do: chase intruders alone in the dark, enter the solvent store, remove the chain or padlock, move the ladder, or adjust the camera back to its normal position.
2. Write out what he should record and how the physical items should be preserved as evidence, and set out who he informs and when.
Read the worked answer
What to record, at the time and not from memory later:
- The exact time each item was found, from a time-checked watch or phone.
- The location in words and on the site plan: rear of Block C, north wall, 4 metres from the boundary.
- The state of each item - chain new and bright, padlock with an identifiable make or marking, ladder lying flat with its foot pointing which way, tyre track direction, tread pattern and width, camera lens facing the wall.
- What he did and, importantly, what he did not touch.
- Names of the second guard and any witness, plus lighting and weather conditions.
Preservation:
- Photograph each item from a standing position, with a scale if possible and a time stamp, before anything is moved. Do not rearrange the scene for a better picture.
- The ladder, chain and padlock are handled with gloves and only after the police permit it, then tagged with date, time, place and the name of the person who found them.
- The DVR footage from camera 7 must be preserved by a written request to the site manager within the hour - most systems overwrite in 7 to 30 days, and a written request fixes who is responsible for keeping it.
Escalation: shift supervisor by phone immediately, then the site manager on arrival, then the agency's security officer, then the police on 112 where the facts justify it. His written incident report goes in during the same shift, not at the end of the week. If a theft or forced entry is later confirmed, the site manager files the FIR and this report becomes part of it.
3. At handover the shift supervisor says: 'The audit is next week - write it up as nothing found and I will handle the chain myself.' How should the guard respond?
Read the worked answer
He should refuse, politely, in writing, and keep a copy.
The reasoning: his signature on a 'nothing found' report is the one act that converts a site problem into his own offence. If a theft is discovered next week, the record shows he patrolled that hour and found nothing - so either he was negligent or he falsified the record, and he will not be believed when he then produces the true story. A chained fire exit is also a life-safety violation: if staff die at a locked exit in a fire, the paper trail is the first thing the inquiry will read.
How to refuse without a confrontation:
- Say: 'I will write the facts as I saw them. If you want to add anything, add it as a separate note over your signature and I will attach it.' That shifts responsibility back to the person giving the instruction.
- Submit the report through the normal channel and, in the same note, record the instruction and the time it was given - factually, without adjectives.
- Inform the agency's security officer and operations head in writing if the pressure continues. The client's supervisor is not the guard's employer; the agency is, and the agency carries the PSARA licence.
- Do not touch the register entries of other shifts, do not backdate, and do not discuss the matter with other guards as gossip - a written trail and quiet escalation are the protection, not a public argument at the gate.
If the supervisor physically takes the report book or tears a page, that is a separate incident to be reported immediately, with the time and any witness.