Assignments & duties
What is use of force?
Use of force by a security officer is limited to what the law permits any citizen — reasonable force in defined circumstances such as self-defence or preventing crime. A contract cannot extend that.
Nothing in an SIA licence or a client instruction authorises force beyond the legal position. An instruction to remove someone is an instruction to ask them to leave, not an authorisation to make them.
Reasonableness is judged on the circumstances as the officer honestly believed them to be, which is why what an officer perceived and why is central to any account of an incident.
Training in physical intervention exists for the situations that occur despite de-escalation, and it is refreshed because the skill and the legal understanding both decay.
What goes wrong in practice
- Client instructions treated as authorisation for force.
- Incidents written up without recording what the officer perceived at the time.
- Physical intervention training completed once and never refreshed.