Safety Call on Cash Van Crime

31 Jan 2009

Security union GMB is stepping up its campaign to tackle ‘horrendous attacks’ on workers in the sector. A conference organised this week by the union brought together senior security industry managers and police officers, a Home Office minister and senior officers from GMB. GMB national officer Jude Brimble told the conference: ‘GMB welcomes this conference as a step up in the co-operation between all the agencies in tackling these horrendous attacks. We all need to do a lot more to stop GMB members who work in the security industry being injured and killed at work during these attacks.’ The union officer said: ‘GMB’s starting point is that it will not be possible to eliminate the desire on the part of criminals to get their hands on the cash being transported by GMB members. GMB have to put in place a system that makes it all but impossible for them to do so and to get away with it. That means a 360 degree solution.’ She explained: ‘Where possible we need to engineer the cash in transit system so that there are no opportunities for criminals to get near the cash. Where this is not possible, we need to make it as difficult as possible to carry out attacks, and where attacks are carried out we need to ensure that there is 100 per cent chance of the criminals being identified and caught.’ She said the courts must deal ‘robustly’ with offenders and local authorities must allow cash vans close access to delivery points.