How safe are our local high streets? BERTIE WORCESTER-PARK reports on continued complaints over the actions of private security ‘rangers’ and what has been described as ‘an unchecked betrayal of public trust’
High street security contractors operating for councils across London, including in Croydon and Sutton, where staff from private firms patrol public areas issuing on-the-spot fines for minor offences, have come under increased scrutiny after a video of a confrontation between a pair of wardens and a resident went viral and was broadcast on Channel 5 News.
Flashpoint: viral video showed Kingdom wardens threatening a member of the public. Harrow suspended their contractors. Kingdom continue to operate in Sutton
The incident occurred in Harrow, and shows one warden telling the resident, “I’m going to knock you the fuck out” and “rip your teeth out”.
Harrow Council’s response was to suspend patrols by Kingdom Group immediately.
In Sutton, the council operates a highly lucrative, fine-for-profit street enforcement racket with the same company, which has also been subject to frequent complaints from the public to the Liberal Democrat-controlled council.
Residents have resented being subjected to predatory shakedowns, under a council contract that originally allowed the private firm to pocket 100% of fines.
Today, Kingdom keeps up to 90% of any fines issued on Sutton streets, with the council taking the remainder as its “cut” from on-the-spot fines for offences such as dropping cigarette butts to street drinking.
In Croydon, a similar service of uniformed “rangers”, funded out of public money, is now operated by a different company, SWL Security Services, under contract to Croydon BID, the business improvement district. Inside Croydon has reported previously complaints of how this privatised security in public areas has been found to be heavy-handed and intimidating. Jason Perry, the Conservative Mayor of Croydon, is also a director of Croydon BID.
Having the security service overseen by Croydon BID makes it less liable to public scrutiny than if it was contracted by the council.
Your money’s paying for this: instead of extra, fully trained police, Mayor Perry has helped Croydon BID to hire these guys
Croydon Council, when under a Labour administration, ended its contract with Kingdom in 2014 because of what was perceived to be its bullying tactics.
Croydon’s exit report explicitly cited severe reputational risks and a lack of mindfulness toward vulnerable groups, warning that Kingdom’s entire business viability was structurally dependent on targeting easy marks to hit their own corporate finance targets.
There have been other flashpoints across London.
In Kingston, their private enforcement setup was exposed in another viral video that showed aggressive “litter police” hounding a resident. In the video, a warden bizarrely barked at a resident that they had “no right to remain silent”.
When the books were opened, the data exposed the real game: the private firm had issued 1,507 fines to easy-target cigarette droppers while catching exactly one dog owner who failed to clean up after their pet.
Kingston simply swapped uniforms, shackling their residents to a fresh three-year deal with WISE, another private enforcement firm.
Public records suggest that, in addition to Harrow, Kingdom or its subsidiaries provide street security patrols or similar services in seven other London boroughs, including Sutton.
Kingdom claims its businesses, run from offices on Merseyside, make £300million in annual revenue – that’s a lot of 60-quid-a-time fines – from their “talented team of over 11,500 colleagues”.
Sutton’s LibDems could, of course, dismantle the racket in their town centre and admit they were wrong. Or they could just keep pocketing the cash…
Following last month’s local elections, when the opposition Conservatives were wiped out, losing all 21 council seats, Barry “Basher” Lewis, the council leader, and his 50 LibDem councillors operate an impregnable, one-party borough, able to brush aside all concerns from the public or the four remaining opposition councillors.
Even when there was opposition, the LibDems ruthlessly shutdown any discussion. When Kingdom was accused of systematic profiling of Sutton’s newly arrived Hong Kong BNO visa community, the committee’s LibDem chair, Christopher Woolmer, simply applied a procedural guillotine and ruled the debate out of order.
Closely advised by Sutton’s £179,105 per year “strategic director” Spencer Palmer, Woolmer claimed that day-to-day operational complaints didn’t qualify as an “unforeseen emergency”.
The reality was that town-centre wardens were actively targeting Cantonese-speaking shoppers as guaranteed payouts, exploiting their anxiety over permanent residency to extract £150 fines out of pure fear.
When cornered with formal questions at full council, the LibDems shamelessly demanded data to prove the profiling — the very demographic numbers intentionally omitted from contract logging to ensure a perfect accountability vacuum.
Vote LibDem: Richard Choi campaigned in Cantonese last year, but has been silent over the targeting of his fellow Hong Kongers
Sutton’s LibDems now include a councillor with a Hong Kong background, Richard Choi. But he has failed to offer an ounce of meaningful resistance, posing no challenge over his council’s enforcement money-making operation.
The Liberal Democrats have effectively turned their corner of south London into an easy target for unaccountable privateers.
“Their ongoing refusal to kill off this commercial shakedown is no longer an operational oversight, but a deliberate, unchecked betrayal of public trust,” according to one council insider.
Read more: Uniformed guards are making our town centre more hostile
Read more: Council heavies move in on vulnerable people on George Street
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2026, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for an EIGHTH time in nine years, in Private Eye magazine’s annual round-up of civic cock-ups
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This week is probably a good time to drop litter or fail to clear up after your snarling shit-monster (dog), because if Perry’s thugs/bouncers are wearing that heavy black winter clothing this week in Croydon, they will have passed out !