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Sutton security guard sacked after leaving store to catch thief

8:40am Friday 3rd February 2012 in Sutton By James Pepper

Sutton security guard sacked after leaving store to catch thief Sutton security guard sacked after leaving store to catch thief

A security guard was sacked after leaving his store to catch a thief.

Charles Oloro, 42, lost his job of 14 years at HMV after leaving the chain’s shop in the St Nicholas Centre, Sutton, to chase a man who had just taken a stack of DVDs.

On December 31 last year Mr Oloro was watching the man as he made his way to the door.

The man made a bolt for the exit and Mr Oloro said instinct took over and he chased him out of the door.

About 10m from the shop entrance, the security guard tackled the thief and frogmarched him back to the shop, where he called police.

But his actions saw him hauled in front of his bosses and led to him losing his job.

HMV policy is for security guards to avoid confrontational incidents, including outside of store environments, that have the potential to escalate into something much more serious.

Mr Oloro, who has two mortgages, said he was just trying to help the shop and save them from losing money.

He said: “Twenty DVDs is £200 for the shop, it was too much to lose. In a time of recession, I just wanted to save the shop money, and this is how they repay me.”

He went to his manager after the incident to apologise for leaving the shop.

An HMV spokesman said the policy its loss prevention officer (LPO) should not put themselves in danger was introduced in 2007 after a member of staff in Norwich was stabbed to death after apprehending a thief.

He said: “While I am not in a position to give specific details of why Mr Oloro has been dismissed from his position as an LPO at our Sutton branch, not least because he still has a right of appeal, which we would not wish to prejudice, I can confirm he was asked to leave for an accumulation of reasons, including most recently for a clear breach of company procedure during an incident that took place at the store last week.”

HMV customer Kieran Spears, said: “Charlie is a hero. He has been there as long as I remember, he’s such a nice guy and everyone knows him.

“What is the point in having security guards if they cannot tackle thieves?”

Comments(20)

eagles says...
9:05am Fri 3 Feb 12

what a joke.
so this says that people should go there nick stuff and you will not get chased by the security store staff hmm very good, its no wonder why hmv are in trouble if they allow thiefs to get away everytime.
hmv may as well not have any security as what do they do then......

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Crease2000 says...
9:13am Fri 3 Feb 12

HMV are probably trying to reduce their costs by getting rid of people over whatever reasons they can find, purely because the store is going out of business.

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Sick of it all says...
9:35am Fri 3 Feb 12

This is disgusting and certainly due to the fact that the Sutton Store will no doubt be closing soon. They dont want to pay Charlie the redundancy. I worked at the store when it first moved to the St Nicholas Centre and Charlie was a great security guard and person. I still count his as a friend even though I stopped working for HMV years ago. Fight this Charlie!! Dont let them weasel you out of the company for bulls*** reasons. Tom

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Citywarrior says...
9:48am Fri 3 Feb 12

This is appalling! They sacked their security guard for catching a thief? Utter disbelief. So the poor guy is now another unemployed figure when jobs are hard to come by! Well done HMV you have lost a customer in me too! I will never shop at the store again

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TOPHOUSE1 says...
12:50pm Fri 3 Feb 12

Hope there is more to this than meets the eye.If this man was just doing his job then no wonder HMV is in trouble.Think the manager needs a good kick up the a---

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PeterM says...
1:24pm Fri 3 Feb 12

I'm not surpised about this at all.

Some years ago I saw someone stuffing a holdall with baby clothes in Mothercare in Swansea. I told the store manager about this, whilst the thief was still in the shop, and I was told that they put this down to 'leakage' and build any losses into the price on the shelf.

Most shops just can't be bothered anymore, as it's cheaper to have stuff 'nicked' rather than pay for a security guard. M&S are an exception to this as their security guards do 'get involved' and they (the shop) will pursue thieves through the courts at all costs.

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LiberalsOut says...
1:25pm Fri 3 Feb 12

My first job when I left school 35 years ago was with HMV.We used to regularly leave the store to catch shoplifters and get praised by Senior Management for doing so.This guy is a victim of the touchy feely society we have walked blindly into and should take his case as far as he can even to the dreaded Human Rights court.Remember the scum who shoplift add several % to the cost of goods in the shops

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theavengers says...
1:31pm Fri 3 Feb 12

So a guy does his job and is fired. Says a lot about Sutton HMV. So the theif will get away with a slap nthe wrist at best and a guy who works for a living gets punished for the theif doing wrong. What a load of sh! 14 years with the company and they say it's an accumulation of reasons? 14 years of reasons? Come on, no wonder HMV and Sutton High Street in general is dying. Customer service, management, it's all crap. I hope this guy gets a payout for unfair dismissal.

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Cupoftea says...
4:24pm Fri 3 Feb 12

How awful. I regularly shop at HMV and this had made me think twice. Id rather buy elsewhere. HMV are struggling to compete at the minute and this is not going to do them any favours. I'd imagine Charlie will get loads of job offers as by all accounts he seems a decent bloke

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spark15 says...
5:16pm Fri 3 Feb 12

HMV will no longer get my custom - if this is as it reads, what a despicable way to treat an employee for acting instinctively to protect his employers profits. What is the world coming to? Loyalty obviously counts for nothing - shame on you HMV. Hopefully Charlie will find a job where he is respected and supported.

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Tamogen says...
5:19pm Fri 3 Feb 12

I have known Charlie for years and worked with him as a security guard at HMV. This is disgusting! I hope he takes HMV to the cleaners for this treatment. I know from bitter experience that HMV management are heavily flawed and dishonest.
Chin up Charlie, loads of people will be angry with HMV for treating you like this. x

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Tamogen says...
8:22pm Fri 3 Feb 12

Sick of it all wrote:
This is disgusting and certainly due to the fact that the Sutton Store will no doubt be closing soon. They dont want to pay Charlie the redundancy. I worked at the store when it first moved to the St Nicholas Centre and Charlie was a great security guard and person. I still count his as a friend even though I stopped working for HMV years ago. Fight this Charlie!! Dont let them weasel you out of the company for bulls*** reasons. Tom
I worked there when you did Tom ;)

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PeterM says...
8:47pm Fri 3 Feb 12

Well HMV have shot themselves in the foot by doing this. Today, Friday 3rd February, someone picked up 4 IPod docks and simply walked out setting the alarms off. The staff looked on and simply shrugged their shoulders when it was pointed out to them.

Looks like it's open house for shoplifters now.

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theresa7475 says...
9:20pm Fri 3 Feb 12

What a disgusting way to treat a loyal employee. I thought that was the whole point of security guards,clearly not as far as HMV are concerned.
Looks like Xmas 2012 has come early for the thieves, maybe we should all pop down there tomorrow and help ourselves!
Dont let them get away with this, fight them for unfair dismissal.
Hopefully another company will see this and be grateful to have you work for them. I wish you all the best and hope your back doing what you are clearly good at, very soon.

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Michael Pantlin says...
9:46am Sat 4 Feb 12

This sends one of those "clear messages" LBS PR are so fond of viz HMV DVDs are free if you flee. Perhaps that's the only way they can shift the stock off their shelves.

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john reeves says...
12:25pm Sat 4 Feb 12

this incidence STINKSto me.this is a good guy doing a good service fo r m e taking his job in the correct way. l ets ho.p e he gets the justic e h e de serves. johnreeves.GM.,

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Krissi says...
12:36pm Sat 4 Feb 12

I thought that was the reason to have security guards, to follow thieves outside the shop and apprehend them with the stolen property, which is then returned into the shop stock no wonder shops are going out of business with that attitude they obviously can no longer afford the losses, and they know the general law abiding public won't keep putting up with price hikes to cover them, and because they are afraid to do anything about it they are going bust

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patrickh says...
8:39pm Sun 5 Feb 12

HMV shame on you! In order to prove that someone has stolen something, i.e. has actually shoplifted some goods, I believe that they have to have left the store without attempting to pay for the goods. If you stop them before they leave, technically they have stolen nothing. They may just be about to pay before leaving. So on this policy, of not letting Security Guards leave the store.. people can just walk out with goods! Bizarre..... By the way, take them to a Tribunal, Happy Man Victorious!!

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TheEverardedbutt says...
9:34am Mon 6 Feb 12

PeterM wrote:
I'm not surpised about this at all.

Some years ago I saw someone stuffing a holdall with baby clothes in Mothercare in Swansea. I told the store manager about this, whilst the thief was still in the shop, and I was told that they put this down to 'leakage' and build any losses into the price on the shelf.

Most shops just can't be bothered anymore, as it's cheaper to have stuff 'nicked' rather than pay for a security guard. M&S are an exception to this as their security guards do 'get involved' and they (the shop) will pursue thieves through the courts at all costs.
No they don't. Any theft of food items ie meat, as long as its under £30 the offender will be banned and told they will be treated as a trespasser if they are to come onto M&S property and charged with burglary if you are caught thieving again. There is a similar limit on clothing items too. (Meat is always hit hard in M&S, especially in the Whitgift Store, on a good day we would nick 15 people and that's just the tip of the iceberg. While we are off the shop floor with the detainee others will come and take advantage.)
Also with your above example you cannot act upon information received by the public (Leaves you open to being used to fulfil someones dodgy agenda-I don't like that person so I will say they are thieving, or arrest yourself for false imprisonment)
As a RLP (Retail Loss Prevention) Officer I have had many dealing with public informing the uniformed guards that someone is stealing, You cannot act upon this you have to witness the offence yourself as anyone you detain is done under citizens arrest protocol.

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Pacifica-silencio says...
8:05pm Tue 14 Feb 12

Quite clearly most people haven't read all of this story. Also quite clear that most people on here wish that mr oloro have a possibility of being harmed by criminals, possibly fatally, on the minds of Hmv and himself. It saddens me that the general public wish this on a man who has given almost half his life to a company, and don't believe for one second that Hmv did it to "save money", other wise he would be able to sue the company on unfair dismissal. It's all well and good shouting abuse at a company, but think about things before you start commenting on things you have no idea about.

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