Eagles fans were shocked by findings in our exclusive investigation into searches conducted by a private security firm outside Selhurst Park
Search centre: the Metropolitan Police failed to respond to Inside Croydon’s questions about their policy with private firms’ sniffer dogs
Inside Croydon’s exclusive report about potentially unlawful security searches outside Selhurst Park Stadium, using sniffer dogs, received overwhelming support from Crystal Palace supporters, several of whom reported having to endure similarly suspicious experiences.
Last month, former Sunday Times Insight journalist Peter Gillman reported for this website how a security firm, InvictaK9, had been hired by the football club to deploy sniffer dogs along Holmesdale Road to detect drugs and pyrotechnics on fans as they queued to enter the stadium.
Gillman’s findings, after he had endured an unpleasant experience of his own, found that handlers working for InvictaK9 were breaking the terms of their licence, by failing to, or even refusing, to identify themselves and who they worked for.
Our investigation followed an incident at Palace’s home match with Ipswich on March 8, when Gillman was pulled out of the entrance queue and taken to be searched by a dog handler who was wearing no identification and refused to say who he was or for whom he was working.
Checks with the National Training Inspectorate for Professional Dog Users confirmed that the search as conducted was illegal under the Private Security Industry Act 2001.
A spokesperson for NTIPDU added that they were “truly appalled that any person would be subjected to the kind of treatment I have just read about”.
The Security Industry Authority backed this up, telling Inside Croydon that a security firm “contravening licence conditions is a criminal offence under Section 9 of the Private Security Industry Act of 2001”. They added that the company could be prosecuted by the SIA for this breach of the law.
But the Metropolitan Police failed to respond to our repeated requests for comment, and policy documents, over their officers’ conduct when working alongside private security firms using sniffer dogs at sports events.
The reaction to our report on the Eagles fans bulletin boards confirmed a widespread dissatisfaction with the conduct of security handlers outside Selhurst Park, with some suggesting that the examples cited in Gillman’s report were far from “isolated” incidents.
“Excellent article,” one Palace supporter wrote. “Confirms the suspicions by many on here earlier in the season that the company were operating outside of the law.
“Hopefully Palace and Co buck their ideas up.”
After seeing Gillman’s report of his own search, one Eagles fan wrote: “That’s a dreadful story. All stewards and security staff need to be clearly identified and accountable.”
Another reader called the actions of the security firm, “Outrageous.”
Another added: “If these cowboys think they have legal powers, the law needs turning on them.”
Impressed: a sample of the feedback to Peter Gillman’s investigation that appeared on the Palace fans’ bulletin board
One fan offered a view about the legality, or otherwise, of the Palace-hired sniffer dogs being used to search people on the public highway: “If they are say sniffing out anyone who smells of cannabis, for example, surely they are picking people out who may have smoked it previously in the same clothes, have been in a room [or] the vicinity of where someone else has smoked?
“If it was just someone walking past and this happened, it could open the club to all kinds of legal action.”
One bulletin board user observed: “I’ve seen these ‘security’ people with dogs searching a disabled lady outside the LH turnstiles to the point they made her fold up her walking stick and give it to them for examination, remove her coat and allow them to go through all the pockets.”
And anothr wrote: “Crazy isn’t it? Anyone can be subject to a humiliating search on the basis of being sniffed by some dog who no one knows has even been trained properly.
“It should be totally stopped… Is it right that numerous fans should be wrongly searched just to deter a few Herberts taking coke in?”
And there was well-justified scepticism, too, of the role played in all of this by police officers on duty at the ground. “If police detain you for a stop and search based [on] a privately owned dog alerting on you, then they will be open to a lot of lawsuits. It’s an unlawful search.
“I would guess that the club has every right deny you entry into the ground if you refuse to comply. However, if they are contracting security who do not have SIA licences on display, then the club, the contractor and the security are acting unlawfully also.”
Read more: Something doesn’t sniff right as security firm breaks the law
Read more: 83-year-old Palace fan shaken by Selhurst security shakedown
Read more: After 120-year wait, it was tears of joy at Palace’s parade party
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