A few days ago, at 13:00 in the afternoon, one of our clients’ void properties was broken into…

Unfortunately, this has been an all too common occurrence during the Covid-19 national lockdowns. The first lockdown suffered from a surge in break-ins at commercial sites, and many more businesses have been left vulnerable over the last couple of months too.

Criminals have been targeting any shops, pubs and other commercial premises that have been left vacant and without adequate security. Sites that have been left unoccupied for an indefinite period have needed the right kind of vacant property security in place – now more than ever.

Break-in stopped thanks to video verification

The recent void property break-in that one of our clients had could have been far worse. Luckily for the client, they had assigned SGC Security Services to install a wireless, battery operated, RSI video verification system.

You can watch the video below, which was uploaded by our highly-experienced Security Consultant, Steve McNulty…

You can see clearly in the first 10 seconds of footage, the thieves are looking at the mains control panel and searching around. The footage itself was already being watched though, thanks to an alarm trigger system linked to the live video feed. And this was being relayed in real-time to our central security operations centre, which then allowed security officers to instantly see exactly what had activated the specific alarm.

In the last 10 seconds of the video, the thieves can be seen entering the building through the main entrance. By this time though, the footage has already been received by our control room and the incident immediately verified as intruders on-site. This allowed our on duty Officer to dispatch our patrol driver and notify the police.

The video verification system instantly verified that criminal activity was happening and that this wasn’t a false alarm, therefore the police responded and assisted our patrol driver and attended the site.

Preventative & highly-effective

This particular void property had steel on the windows and even had steel doors, but this gang of thieves still managed to gain entry. The building had no power and is pitch black inside even during the day with no light shining in, so these thieves clearly saw an opportunity.

However, thanks to the void property security in place, the video verification system acted immediately and within minutes the police had arrived and apprehended 4 males and made 4 arrests. This was a great result and boost to team morale, and certainly not bad for a Friday afternoon!

Of course no client wants to experience anything like this, and the outcome could have been far worse had the right security not been in place. Thanks to the preventative & highly-effective void property security the crime was stopped, and more importantly the clients property had not been unnecessarily damaged by the intruders.

This is a prime example of how crucial video verification systems can be to businesses who have vacant properties. These systems allow construction site security, vacant property security or any other business security operators to catch criminals in the act. Meaning the police can then be deployed as the crime is still going on.

The evolution of on-site security

Business security systems are always evolving, and new and innovative security software and technology is being developed. Video verifications systems are certainly one of these, and have become one of the most effective and widely utilised security measures for many businesses during this time. And with the above example, it’s not hard to see why.

Video verifications systems bring a wealth of benefits to businesses, including:

• A significantly reduced rate of false alarms, as they provide instant confirmation of an actual crime, ensuring authorities will be dispatched.
• An increased apprehension rate, due to the clear verification of actual criminal activity and far faster response times.
• A greater amount of cost saving, thanks to having an extremely reduced rate of false alarms. In fact, not even the odd ghost will cost you when it comes to video property security with video verification in place.
• Access to valuable evidence, as video will be captured before, during, and after the criminal activity has taken place. This can all be turned into valuable evidence and real-time information for law enforcement.

We can provide you with a FREE comprehensive site security audit and assess exactly what security services will be most effective for your business – simply contact us here today.