Two uniformed men employed by a private security firm intervened to restrain a suspected attacker who stabbed an 11-year-old girl in Leicester Square in central London on Aug. 12, 2024, a case that highlighted the growing presence of subscription-based private patrols in Britain.
The men, later identified only by their first names in media reports, were working for My Local Bobby, a company founded in 2016 by a former Metropolitan Police detective chief inspector. The firm now says it operates around dozens of residential and business "beats" across London and parts of the Home Counties and employs about 150 uniformed officers, together with plain-clothes detectives.
My Local Bobby and similar companies offer household and business subscriptions, with reported monthly fees ranging from roughly £30 to £125, and say they provide a named patrol officer for each community, dedicated mobile contact numbers, and rapid response to calls from subscribers. The firms also use WhatsApp groups to share intelligence among residents and monitor CCTV footage around the clock from central control rooms.
David McKelvey, the ex-Met officer who founded My Local Bobby, has said the service was created after he noticed a reduced visible police presence on the streets. The company describes its staff as heavily weighted toward former police and military personnel and says they receive regular training in restraints and handcuffs. My Local Bobby has told clients that its teams act as "first responders" in many neighbourhoods and that residents now typically contact the private patrol before calling police.
Under existing UK law, private officers do not hold constabulary powers. They and members of the public can perform a citizen's arrest, and the Criminal Law Act permits the use of "reasonable force" to prevent offences or to detain an offender, but private firms have no additional arrest powers or statutory authority beyond that of any other citizen.
The rise of private patrols has been driven, its proponents say, by concern over falling police visibility and resourcing. Official figures cited by industry and media reports note that the Metropolitan Police lost about 1,000 officers in the last year and that public confidence in policing has declined. A recent landmark review of public attitudes found that 49% of people described their local force as doing a "good or excellent job" in the year to March, down from 62% a decade earlier, and only 11% said they saw an officer on patrol at least once a week, compared with 29% ten years prior.
Other crime statistics cited in reporting show a significant rise in retail theft and related offences. Shoplifting was estimated to cost high street stores about £2.2 billion a year, with roughly 530,643 offences recorded in the most recent year — a 20% increase on the 2023 figure. Recorded crime-solve rates have also fallen, with a reported detection rate of 5.7% in 2022 compared with 29% in 2010.
Some local business groups and residents say private patrols have produced tangible results in their areas. Business improvement districts have contracted such services, citing increases in visible patrols and faster response to incidents such as shoplifting and antisocial behaviour. A firm operating in a Brentwood suburb said that, since deploying private patrols, its area had logged far fewer reported incidents than the wider borough, though those figures come from the company and have not been independently verified in reporting.
A number of other private security organisations have followed the model pioneered by My Local Bobby. Firms active in the regions include Blueline Security in the Home Counties, Dorset-based Safeguard Force, which describes a volunteer complement of more than 200 people including ex-military and first-aid responders, and Birmingham-based The Shield, which markets surveillance and prevention services across the UK.
Critics and some residents have warned about potential downsides. Concerns include the risk that visible private patrols could signal wealthier targets to opportunistic criminals, the uneven availability of subscription services across neighbourhoods, and the absence of statutory oversight equivalent to that for public police forces. Civil liberties groups and criminal justice experts have also cautioned that private policing raises questions about accountability, use of force and the handling of intelligence and personal data.
Regulatory frameworks for private security firms in the UK require licensing for security activities and impose legal duties on operators, but they do not grant private officers the powers of sworn police constables. Police authorities retain responsibility for overall law enforcement and criminal investigations.
The expansion of subscription policing in Britain reflects wider debates about public safety, police resources and community expectations. Supporters say private patrols provide a tailored, rapid-response service that restores visible order in areas where public policing has receded. Opponents argue that reliance on paid security could entrench inequalities in protection and complicate the relationship between communities and the police.
As the model grows, policymakers, policing bodies and local communities face choices about how to regulate, complement or constrain private security in ways that preserve public accountability while addressing the concerns that have driven demand for subscription-based patrols.