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What is Martyn’s Law? Martyn’s Law is the commonly known name for the proposed Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill The Bill, which is expected to be approved by the House of Commons, will introduce new levels of public safety in schools and venues, so they are better protected against intrusion or terrorist threats The Bill is known as Martyn’s Law in honour of Martyn Hett, who was killed in the Manchester Arena attack in May 2017 Schools will fall under the standard tier of the legislation, requiring basic yet effective safety measures. To comply, schools and colleges will need to ensure security protocols match requirements Why are schools being included? Schools have been vulnerable to unauthorised intrusion, and particularly in recent times there has been an increase in knife-related incidents Martyn’s Law is therefore highly applicable to schools and securing their greater future safety What role can Croma play? Croma   is one of the UK’s leading security system advisors and experts in assessing school security to help defend against violent threats or intruders Each school or venue will have varying levels of security and will be individually assessed to gauge if changes or modifications are required A key element of compliance is likely to involve installing a new modern locking system, with the ability to be linked electronically, together with a system to communicate swiftly in an emergency situation between staff, buildings and pupils Croma is able to provide, install and maintain these elements What will schools need to be able to do?   To meet the objective of Martyn’s Law, which is to reduce harm to the students, public and staff at the premises in the event of an attack, schools are likely to be assessed on their ability to achieve the following procedures efficiently in the event of an incident:   Evacuation – Clearing the premises of all students, staff and visitors to a safe area Invacuation – Moving people to somewhere safe inside a building, when there is danger outside Lockdown – Children and staff locked inside school buildings/classrooms for their own safety Communication – Maintain clear communication to staff, students, visitors over the course of an incident Based on Croma’s experience, what will schools need to do to implement new safety procedures? Each school will have different requirements, however there are general approaches and security features which are likely to be widely adopted To lockdown a school requires efficient locking systems, such as Master Key Suites, which divide buildings into secure zones, allowing staff to lock down areas quickly and restrict who has access to keys Communication between staff, students and visitors will be critical. To alert others quickly that a serious incident has occurred there needs to be an emergency protocol system to initiate a defensive response through a platform such as the Croma bSafe security app To implement Martyn’s Law effectively, schools will need to regularly review and practice their lockdown procedures which will increase efficiency and address potential security gaps.   For enquiries on how Croma  can assist your school with the introduction of Martyn’s Law, please contact us at sales@cssgplc.com  or via 01489566100 Martyn’s Law Factsheet – Home Office in the media ( blog.gov.uk ) 'Martyn’s Law' introduced in Parliament to better protect the public from terrorism - GOV.UK ( www.gov.uk )

The most important part of the role that we play in the world of security is treating our clients with the highest of respect, by understanding what their threats and risks are and ensuring that we have truly addressed those. Unfortunately, most people think about security in the aftermath of an incident and we would love to encourage people to talk to us beforehand and save that pain. Croma started with my grandfather who was from Sicily, he and my Father were the Chubb agents in north Africa. After the revolution we came to England, the home of my mother, and we started the business again. I spent my school holidays from the age of seven, working with my father, learning how locks operated, cutting keys, and helping out wherever I could and learnt the world of Locksmithing. My passion however was in electronics, and having studied that, I then rejoined the business officially. We now encompass all of the ingredients of a cake, if you want to put it that way, in the world of security. Starting from Locks, Keys, Safes, Alarms, CCTV, Perimeter Detection, and of course our own in-house product in the world of access control which is our FastVein technology. The ability to read veins within fingers to identify humans, at a very high speed and level of accuracy. It is the highest speed and most accurate biometric solution in the marketplace today. Then we have guarding, surveillance, and other specialist services that we carry out, and close protection which most people think of as bodyguarding. For the entire team here at Croma it is really important that we do our very best for all of our Clients. Croma's clients are very broad spectrum as well, so we deal with people from the everyday home all the way through to private estates and celebrities. In the commercial world of course we deal with schools, hospitals, airports, and many more. We do not think of security in terms of price, of course we understand Clients have to think about money, but what we do is tell them; "these are the things you need to do, and these are the costs involved". I also think it is really very important for clients to understand the ethics that we apply to this, we are not going to try and sell someone something that they do not need, it really must be something that is going to assist them in providing security. So, in order to understand security, and be the experts that we are, we have to understand crime. What has changed in the UK in the last few years, quite significantly, is the rise in Robbery vs Burglary. Robbery is of concern because this is people being attacked in their homes. If we were to think 2000 years ago; "how would we protect ourselves", well, we would find a hill and in the middle our hill we would build a castle which would contain our early alarm system, a lookout tower, with a man in the top of the tower telling us there was an army 5 days march away. At this point, we would prepare, because we now have the intelligence that we are about to be attacked, that was the early alarm system. If we can think about security in the modern world, in our homes, giving us the ability to tell us something is about to happen, gives us that time to perhaps protect ourselves and avoid the incident in the first place. So, when we talk about security, which is in effect, if you read it in the dictionary: "true freedom from anxiety", sadly many people do not really understand it and they think by buying an alarm system or a camera system they have ticked a box of security. The problem with just focusing on one area of security, is that it often fails to address the total picture. When we understand that, we can deliver solutions that are exacting, and meets the clients requirements, but more importantly they truly offer a defense to mitigate losses.