Examination of Witness (Questions 260-279)
FEDERATION OF
THE RETAIL
LICENSED TRADE,
NORTHERN IRELAND
8 MARCH 2006
Q260 Meg Hillier: From that trend
you could tell that difference. Is there any way you could look
at those figures—or maybe even supply them—if you
can you tell by monitoring that whether there has been an increase
in illegal purchasing?
Mrs Carruthers: I think it would
be difficult to draw that conclusion from the figures. The only
figures we have been able to get on the level of counterfeit alcohol
are figures that are UK-wide and they are pretty elderly figures;
they are three or four years old now.
Q261 Chairman: Can I just ask a question
that might be helpful to Mr Campbell and Meg Hillier: would it
be feasible for you, following this session, to write to your
members just to see how many of them had had what was called the
knock on the back door for counterfeit alcohol in the last year
and whether this represented an increase or a decrease in those
approaches. I am not asking for names or locations, but it would
be an answer to Mr Campbell's question, and indeed Meg Hillier's
if you had some sort of indication from them.
Mrs Carruthers: Certainly[1].
Q262 Gordon Banks: I want to take you
back to the point you made about bottling and that it all comes
down to this level of sophistication. In my constituency I also
have a major bottling plant, and bottle manufacturing in my constituency,
so I can understand the difficulty. How do these people get these
bottles? Are they stealing new bottles; are they stealing recycled
bottles? They are surely not manufacturing bottles because it
is such a complex operation! Is it organised that they are stealing
bottles from Owens-Illinois?
Mrs Carruthers: I honestly could
not tell you. I would not know at all. I know that they could
be stealing them from people's back yards. They could be being
sold to them—I do not know. I know that the vast majority
of bottles are not returnable bottles these days, so they just
go straight into the bottle bank and it is lifted by a glass manufacturer
and recycled. I couldn't tell you where they get bottles from.
Lady Hermon: Nicola, you are very welcome
here. It is a very interesting session, if I may say so. I am
tasked to ask you about floor supervisors. Before I do so can
I ask you about poteen: is it poteen manufacture still prevalent
in Northern Ireland, particularly around the border areas? Is
it a constituent used in the manufacture of Smirnoff or counterfeit
Smirnoff?
Q263 Chairman: Can you tell the difference?
Mrs Carruthers: I honestly wouldn't
know. One hears of Poteen but, to be honest—I think that
would probably do less harm than a lot of the counterfeit Smirnoff.
Q264 Lady Hermon: Less harm?
Mrs Carruthers: Yes. A lot of
the counterfeit Smirnoff—the big problem with a lot of counterfeit
alcohol is that you simply don't know what is in it. We get warnings
from Environmental Health officers from time to time that they
have identified a certain consignment, for want of a better word,
of an illegal alcohol that has got methane in or—really
dangerous stuff in it. It is a dangerous product and it should
not be out there. I really could not tell you about Poteen I am
afraid.
Q265 Lady Hermon: Moving on to door
supervisors, could you tell me about the numbers? I know it is
moving from the ridiculous to the sublime. How representative
are the door supervisors of the community in Northern Ireland
in terms of gender? I do know that women bring a different much
calmer atmosphere to pubs, and I would be interested to know how
many women are employed.
Mrs Carruthers: There are apparently
very few employed, probably less than 5% at the moment. It is
something we are trying to change. The venues that do employ a
large number of door supervisors are aware that they need to change.
We are certainly getting a growing number of females coming through
our training courses. It is very important that venues do have
female door supervisors on. As you say, they bring a calming influence.
One of the things we train them on is drugs awareness and how
to find drugs. If you are planning on searching a woman you have
got to have a woman doing it. It is very important, and the number
of female door supervisors is growing. In the last couple of years,
you are not talking about doubling every year—it would be
an awful lot more than that. Five years ago you could probably
count the number of female door supervisors on one hand. There
is now still not nearly enough there is definitely a growing number,
judging by the number of people we are now training.
Q266 Lady Hermon: That is very good
news. Northern Ireland at present does not fall under the security
industry agency. Would you like it to do so? Has the Federation
actively campaigned for it to do so, and what would be the advantages
if the SIA were to extend its remit to Northern Ireland?
Mrs Carruthers: We have not yet
campaigned actively, apart from talking to local councils. We
have been waiting until the whole thing has been up and running
to see exactly how well it is working. It is about to extend its
authority into Scotland, as far as I know. Door supervisors, five
years ago, were entirely unregulated in Northern Ireland and they
were completely untrained, but four years ago we worked with the
British Inn-keeping Institute to develop a door supervisor course
specifically for Northern Ireland, based very much on the GB version,
but with differences for the different Northern Ireland legislative
structure. We started off doing that in partnership with the local
councils. Given that the people who employed door supervisors
also had entertainment licences, which were granted by local councils,
it seemed a sensible way of doing it. We also wanted to do it
in partnership with the local drugs teams and local police, trying
to make it as inclusive as possible. We started training in the
west of Northern Ireland in Omagh, Eniskillen and up to Strabane,
because often our members would tell us we were too Belfast based,
so we like to be as non-Belfast based as possible. We started
off training them. Very early on we realised that there was going
to be an issue in difference between training and registration,
because the two things are very separate. We went and talked to
the councils about this. It was quite clear that some councils
just wanted their door supervisors to be trained and they did
not want to get into anything to do with registration at all.
Q267 Lady Hermon: Why was that?
Mrs Carruthers: They knew there
would be difficulties with registration because registration would
involve police checks, and they wanted at that stage—they
saw it as being more important that a critical mass were trained
and able to deal with customers properly and able to carry out
their duties properly; so they were properly trained and then
they would tackle registration later on, as it were. The majority
of councils have never touched the registration. It would tend
to be councils in and around North Down, Belfast, that tackled
registration, and, again, even then with those that do registration,
they do it in different ways. For example, North Down have set
up a local committee of licensees, the council and police, who
vet the door supervisors and get their reference checks; and that
body decides whether or not to grant somebody registration. On
the other side of the coin, you have the system in Belfast, which,
I have to say, the members in Belfast do not like because Belfast
require police checks to be taken of the door supervisors but
that police check is then given back to the licensee and the licensee
has to exercise their own judgment as to whether or not they want
to employ that door supervisor. The reason we would like to see
an SIA type body in Northern Ireland is that it would remove that
difficulty from the licensee. There are times when licensees are
encouraged to employ particular door supervisors.
Q268 Lady Hermon: Can you elaborate
upon the word "encourage"—by whom?
Mrs Carruthers: There are a number
of very good door supervisor firms, which are great, and an awful
lot of licensees would employ people as employees and then just
use them individually. There has been in the past a perception
that organisations would have door supervisors that they would
like to get on to premises.
Q269 Lady Hermon: Is it a reality
though?
Mrs Carruthers: My members have
never told me one way or another whether they have been persuaded
or not, but what I can say is that a lot of members have said
that they would like not to have to make their own judgment as
to whether or not they employ someone; they would like to be able
to point to a third party, saying, "I am sorry, I can't employ
you because SIA says I cannot".
Q270 Lady Hermon: In other words,
compulsory training and compulsory registration would be very
helpful to the Federation or to your members.
Mrs Carruthers: Absolutely.
Q271 Lady Hermon: Before I leave
this issue, can I ask you to clarify something in the evidence
that you very kindly submitted to the Committee? Licensees can
come under pressure to employ particular individuals (with paramilitary
and/or criminal links) and in the absence of something akin to
the SIA it would be difficult to refuse. Is that a localised Belfast
issue; is it more to the west of the Province? Is it right across
Northern Ireland? What could be done to address that?
Mrs Carruthers: We have heard
about it in Belfast and in the west and north-west. We have not
heard about it, to be honest, in other areas. What could be done
would be something like the SIA or, at the very least, local councils
putting down more stringent requirements in terms of who can or
cannot be registered—taking not necessarily full responsibility
but assisting their licensees in turning down applications for
door supervisors rather than putting the full onus and burden
back on the licensee.
Q272 Lady Hermon: Some local councils
are but most are not; so you are really quite critical of local
councils not giving you sufficient back-up and support that your
members would like.
Mrs Carruthers: It has been surprising
how many local councils in Northern Ireland have not even been
interested in training door supervisors. That has been a surprise
to us. In some ways it has been useful because being a small organisation
at the moment we are training in those areas where we are wanted,
and we have certainly got enough to do. Every single solitary
door supervisor should be properly trained and registered; they
absolutely should. A lot of the councils have been excellent.
Our preferred mode of training the door supervisors is to work
in partnership with the police, the councils, the local drug and
alcohol teams and the local colleges. The door supervisors are
getting to know people on the ground—the local police, the
local council officials who are doing checks. That has really
helped to improve standards and improve relations on the ground,
and that has been excellent, especially in Eniskillen where it
has worked very well. There are other areas where we train door
supervisors but we just use a single trainer who can do the whole
lot, because we know that there are naturally some people who
would not attend training courses if there was police involvement,
so we can accommodate everybody. Certainly our preferred mode
of training is to use the inclusive method.
Q273 Chairman: Mr Fraser wants to
move on to extortion. Would you rather he asked these questions
in private at the end, or are you happy to take them now?
Mrs Carruthers: I can take them
now because there is not really much I can say on it, so I am
fine.
Q274 Mr Fraser: Thank you very much
for your evidence! Next question! I appreciate you have made it
clear that everyone is aware of it, and very little is talked
about, but can you enlighten us as to the extent of the problem
of extortion and how it affects your members in general terms?
Mrs Carruthers: It is even difficult
for me to talk in general terms because in five years I have been
at the Federation it is not something that has ever been discussed
ever; it has just never raised its head. I have never had a member
coming to me, asking me advice about it and to ask me to involve
the police on their behalf. Often we would act as a go-between
between members in certain areas and the police: if members do
not want to contact the police directly, we will do it for them.
I have never had any contact from any member on the issue of extortion.
Q275 Mr Fraser: I fully accept that.
Sir Hugh Orde made it clear when he gave evidence to us that the
biggest challenge that the police face is tackling extortion.
He then went on to say: "There are huge opportunities for
us in this field if we have the information up-front and we want
to work in partnership with the victims to deliver." Therefore,
what steps could be taken to encourage the reporting of extortion
from these members you have that currently do not want to talk
about it? What can happen in terms of a more open approach to
the subject?
Mrs Carruthers: I think it would
have to be something that was not seen to be driven by the police,
perhaps some sort of impartial third party. I know that Crime
Stoppers exists, but I genuinely think that a lot of people do
not realise that Crime Stoppers is an independent charity and
does not have links with the police. I know it has recently started
an advertising campaign and that is long overdue. It is a very
good thing.
Q276 Mr Fraser: Are you talking to
them yourselves?
Mrs Carruthers: No, we have not.
Business crime is obviously an issue for the whole business community.
The Community Safety Unit at the Northern Ireland Office is trying
to set up a group to look specifically at business crime. We had
an initial meeting of that last week which was useful because
the police were able to supply figures on the level of business
crime across the board. It was a general feeling that it was woefully
under-reported, just on the figures that we saw. It is not helpful
to sit here and say it is very hard and we are not sure what can
be done, but one of the biggest problems is that there is a big
perception that this is going on, and those people who are suffering
from it are fearful. That is the basic bottom line. People would
be scared to report it. It will be a very long time before that
can be overcome. Perhaps as the Assets Recovery Agency and the
Organised Task Force become more visible and more work is done,
that will allay fears to some extent, but it is a hugely difficult
area.
Q277 Mr Fraser: Is that because of
the repercussions from the organisations that are undertaking
such activity, or is it because your members feel when they report
to police that either it is not taken seriously, or they are dealing
with it in a way that is less than efficient?
Mrs Carruthers: I cannot comment
specifically on the extortion and what our members believe to
be the case on extortion, and why they do not report it. On business
crime per se a lot of them would not report it because
they feel it is a waste of time.
Q278 Chairman: Do you have anonymous
surveys of your members, questionnaires, that they feel in without
necessarily having to say who they are? Do you assess feelings
and views on that basis at all?
Mrs Carruthers: We have done that
in the past, yes[2].
Q279 Chairman: Would you be able to do
that in this area?
Mrs Carruthers: Yes.
Chairman: That would be extremely helpful
and we would be grateful to you; it would be something we would
be very interested in.
1 See note page Ev 128. Back
2
See note page Ev 128. Back
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