The Copper Cable Suspect: Detention, Bribes and a Supervisor's Order
You are the night guard at a construction-materials yard on the Islamabad–Rawalpindi road. At 01:40 you see a young man passing bundles of copper cable through a cut in the perimeter fence to a waiting motorcycle. The rider escapes. You catch the youth and hold him. He is not armed, is crying, and says his uncle told him to do it. Your shift supervisor arrives and says: ‘Put him in the paint store and lock the door - we will deal with him in the morning. If his family comes with money, take it and let him go; the police will only cause us trouble.’ The paint store has no window, no light and no camera. The yard owner is away. Your mobile phone has 30% battery, the site has no landline, and the youth tells you he is 17 years old.
1. What lawful authority, if any, do you have over the youth, and what must you do in the next 60 minutes? Give reasons for each step.
Read the worked answer
A security guard has no police powers. He holds the powers of an ordinary private citizen plus whatever the employer’s contract and post orders allow. In Pakistan a private person may arrest someone who, in his presence, commits a cognizable and non-bailable offence, and must hand that person to the police without unnecessary delay. Catching a man passing stolen cable through a cut fence at 01:40 is a defensible citizen’s arrest; the arrest is not the problem.
The problem is what happens next. Locking him in an unlit, unwindowed store is confinement. It exposes you and the company to a wrongful-confinement complaint, an assault allegation, or a serious injury in a room nobody can see into, and it contaminates the evidence.
Step by step: keep the youth in a lit, visible area with a second person present; do not interrogate him; do not search him beyond a witnessed pat-down for weapons if post orders permit; note the time of the arrest; call police (15 or the local station number); tell the supervisor police are on the way; if police are delayed, call again and log the time; do not hand him to family and do not accept money. Note the motorcycle’s direction, any registration, and preserve the cut fence section. Because he says he is 17, treat him as a juvenile: no threats, no adult detainees near him, and tell police his stated age. Every step above protects the case and protects you.
2. The supervisor repeats the order to lock the youth in the store and says he will take any money offered. How do you handle this without a confrontation, and what do you do afterwards?
Read the worked answer
Rank matters, but an unlawful order does not become lawful because a supervisor gives it. Handle it in three moves: acknowledge, state the specific risk, offer an alternative.
Acknowledge: ‘Sir, I understand you want this sorted before morning.’ State the risk in concrete terms, not as a lecture: the store has no light and no camera; if the youth is injured or claims he was beaten, the company and the guard on duty are the ones answering; taking money to release a suspect is extortion and would end both your jobs and possibly your liberty. Offer the alternative: police are already called; the supervisor can wait with you; the youth stays in the lit gatehouse where the camera sees him.
If the supervisor insists, do not physically fight him, but do not carry out the order. Call the police and the security manager or owner. If money is offered and the supervisor moves to take it, record what you see, do not participate, and report it. Afterwards, write a factual statement in your notebook the same shift, keep the original pages, and report to your security company’s control room. Refusing an illegal instruction is a conduct issue only if you refuse politely and report it; obeying it is a criminal exposure.
3. List the entries you make in your notebook before 03:00 and explain why each entry matters.
Read the worked answer
Write in 24-hour time, factually, without opinions about guilt.
01:40 - heard scraping at the north fence, saw male passing cable bundles through a cut; one rider left on a motorcycle, direction and description noted. This fixes the observation and the timeline.
01:43 - detained the male inside the yard; he was not armed and did not resist. This records that force was minimal.
01:47 - male stated his age as 17 and said his uncle instructed him. Recorded as his statement, not as fact.
01:50 - supervisor arrived and instructed that the male be locked in the paint store. This is the critical entry: it shows the instruction came from the supervisor, not from you.
01:52 - I informed the supervisor the store is unlit, unwindowed and without a camera, and that police must be called. Advice given, instruction not carried out.
01:55 - called police on mobile, reference number and operator name noted.
02:10 - male held in gatehouse, in view of camera 2, second guard present.
Each entry matters because memory fades and a supervisor may later deny the instruction. A contemporaneous, timed notebook is the guard’s best evidence in a disciplinary hearing, a police statement or a civil claim. Never rewrite or tear out pages; a correction is a single line through the error with initials and time.