Holding Carriage, Bell and Heater key "illegal"

[Antman]

Well apparently, Security Guard Of The Month tried to get his boss to authorise a permanent confiscation.

I'm not sure they have the power to do that?

 

[philthetube]

I am aware that many years in the past both T key and Bardic lamp have err... "successfully" been used as (defensive) weapons by traincrew whilst being attacked, although this is highly frowned upon nowadays.

There is nothing wrong with using either of these for defence if needed, provided they are being carried for a good reason, what is wrong is carrying them as a weapon in the first place, this has been established in law in the past.

 

[BestWestern]

What was being alluded to, I presume, is the old favourite of something being "an offensive weapon". I'm in no way legally qualified, but I believe that the basic gist of it is that anything which could reasonably potentially be carried for the purposes of inflicting harm, must be justified by being carried for a particular purpose. If someone were to be carrying a carriage key around with them in public, with no obvious cause for doing so, and were to find themselves thwacking somebody with said item, it could presumably be suggested that the item was being carried for that reason. I recall a chap giving a 'conflict avoidance' type course who'd had been consulting for a security firm. Their mobile patrols carried a decent sized and reasonably solid torch. The operatives would have this thing on their belt as standard kit, night and day. He had advised the company that should one of their staff find themselves in a tangle during daylight hours and end up using the torch for purposes of self defence, they might well be on the wrong end of an offensive weapon charge as there would be no reasonable cause for carrying it at that time. I don't know quite how watertight his thinking was, but you get the idea!

Of course, secure areas, such as a court room, may well have their own rules and prohibit items which would be permitted elsewhere. I agree that some 'security staff' can be, frankly, idiots.

 

[kingqueen]

I don't have an issue with them temporarily confiscating it as a potential dangerous implement whilst I'm in the court building. It was door security calling the head of security because, and I quote, "that's for train doors and it's illegal to have one" that got me. Delayed me, delayed the queue to get into the courts (the usual 9:30 rush), made me worry that they would be calling the police or causing other such needless shenanigans, and also made me feel like a bit of a prat in front of everybody. No biggie, but more incredulous that they considered that posessing a T-key is in itself illegal.

The security boss wasn't accepting such, happily, they gave me a receipt for that and my USB-powered fan, and gave it back to me when I left.

Overzealous and alarmist security blokey