The Chief Inspector for Eastbourne is Diana Lewis.

In the summer of 2019 I had probably the most humiliating and painful experience in all the 15 or so years of this. I was in Eastbourne for a week, and like everywhere else, I had noticed the security guards appearing to recognize me and grinning or laughing to each other. On a previous visit to Eastbourne the summer before, I had been physically assaulted by a ‘Business Warden’ (who has police powers, and so is technically a police officer) in the street, his face contorted in rage on seeing me, and who deliberately barged into me leaving me with a painful and injured shoulder.

One particuarly nasty guard in the Beacon Center was a fat female by the name of ‘Nikitta’. The previous day she had made a theatrical gesture of spitting on the ground as she passed me. As my doctors many years previously had suggested I do so in certain situations like this, I calmly and politely approached her and asked her why she was laughing at me. She immediately became aggressive and called on her walkie talkie for back up, saying to her boss – oddly – that I had accused her of ‘looking at him (me) or something’, and that she was anxious. The ‘manager’ of security at the Beacon, a person called Chris, then came and aggressively got into my face, telling me to keep calm, even though he was almost shouting at me and I was trying to be as calm as possible. ‘Nikitta’ and two other guards stood some way away from us, and were visibly laughing as they watched us. I pointed that out to ‘Chris’ and he told me that they were not laughing and ‘just concerned that I (Chris) might be in danger’. I told him that I believed I had been pointed out to his security guards, like every shopping center in Europe, and that this was an issue given that I had a mental health problem, and he told me that they hadn’t been, and that it was my mental health problem leading me to wrongly suspect this. I told him that I suspected the police (i.e. the Business Wardens) had pointed me out to his security guards, and he oddly stated to me that his security guards have no means of communicating with the police. On his LinkedIn profile, it states in his job description that one of his tasks as a G4S security manager is to liaiase with the emergency services. I told him that Nikitta had spat on the ground theatrically as she passed me, and he told me his guards would not do such a thing. When I told him it would be on CCTV, he replied that I would have to apply and pay to have any CCTV viewed. He then ordered me out of the Beacon Center ‘in case I made further allegations against his staff’. Chris also mentioned to me that he ‘had a background in mental health work’, which looking at his LinkedIn profile is somewhat true, and frankly, doesn’t surprise me in the least.

I then made a complaint to the manager of the Beacon Center, who at the time was a man named William Plumridge, and his reply is posted below in full. The next day, I was sitting in the Cafe Nero across the road, and three security staff including Nikitta stood outside the center watching me, and laughing and pointing at me. I recorded them on my smartphone doing this. BTW, I recently returned to Eastbourne and the Beacon Center for the first time in nearly 3 years, and the security guards again appeared to recogize me immediately, and made a point of staring at me. The manager Chris is still there, and on a couple of times he passed me, he made a point of laughing to his colleague. I also saw him almost pushing his head into the face of a young boy of about 13 or 14 in the center and shouting at him that ‘he was going to get nicked’. The young boy, who was with another lad, looked on the point of crying and did not appear to be saying anything. Nikitta also still works there, a lot lighter, and now sporting an eye-catching pineapple haircut, and who oddly I only saw once when she was called out to the incident Chris was dealing with concerning the young boy above. The Business Wardens also appeared to recognize me, and appeared to laugh. One of them I’m sure I recognize from the previoius visit in 2019 (see photo below).

Like every other town in England I’ve visited in the last 15 years, I have also been clearly pointed out to staff in the Boots pharmacy in the Beacon Center, with the cashiers serving me in the exact same odd manner. The ‘legal justification’ for this could only be my behaviour now FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, when I unfortunately and highly regrettably mumbled under my breath what were interpreted as threats at a number of stores (never Boots) in the West End when having a mental health relapse due to the pressure I was being put under by the Met Police.

I also appear to have been pointed out to the train station staff at Eastbourne, who often do the theatrical ‘why don’t you like us looking at you’ act of pure sadism. A few days after being marched out of the Beacon Center by Chris, I was waiting for a train to Brighton at the station. Three police officers were standing by the gates, presumably waiting for a suspect or such. I observed them calmly, and they became rather aggressive, although the female police officer was smirking and grinning just like Nikitta had several days before. Another disturbing thing at Eastbourne train station happened the following year when I went back for a few days. A couple of times I had noticed when passing through the station in the morning, a middle-aged unkempt transgender woman, clearly in the very early stages of transitioning from a man, hanging around talking to and laughing with the staff. Then later during that visit, I was strolling along Eastbourne promenade and saw him walking on the beach with two nervous looking young girls, who must have been around 14, and who clearly he had not known for long.

Reply from William Plumridge Beacon Center Eastbourne 2019 Over G4S Security Complaint

Thank you for your email.

I can confirm that the security officers at The Beacon are employed under contract via G4S but not the security officers in individual stores.

We were sorry to hear that you had experienced difficulties with the police force and staff at other shopping centres but speaking for The Beacon our officers are here to patrol the malls, monitor all situations that may occur, reacting accordingly and that includes the observation of people to ensure the safety and well being of everyone who visits the shopping centre.

The officer you refer to as Chris is a Duty Manager and he acts in a professional manner but if he upset you in some way I apologise on his behalf. As for the other officers that you state laughed or ridiculed you, again I apologise if that is how their actions came across. The security team is very aware that all members of the public should be treated with respect.

We have no intention of banning you from the shopping centre but I would suggest that when you visit us again you carry out your business and ignore the presence of all security officers, whoever they work for and no doubt they will do the same.

Marching a paranoid schizophrenic out of a shopping center in front of the public, after telling him he is paranoid, for calmly confronting security guards who he had clearly been pointed out to and who were mocking him and even spitting at him, like dozens of shopping centers around Europe for the last dozen years. Yeah, it did upset me in some way. Especially when I recorded the same security guards doing the same thing on my phone the next day.

Notice also, that in his reply he did not deny that I had been pointed out to hiis guards (likely by the Business Wardens), and implied that it was justified to keep me under observation because I was agitated and upset by being kept under observation (closer observation than ISIS terrorists and the like), and told repeatedly that it’s all paranoia on my part.

I sent Mr Plumridge a further complaint stating that I had recorded his guards standing laughing at me by the enterance the following day, and he did not reply back.

As far as the Business Wardens are concerned, they have police powers, so legally could count as public officials. In this case, they would be liable for life term imprisionment if convicted of psychological torture under the Criminal Justice Act of 1988.

An Eastbourne Business Warden patrolling security outside the Beacon Center.

Before I challenged Nikitta that day, I asked the security guard standing outside Primark if I had been pointed out to him, and he became aggressive, denying it. The next time I walked past, a business warden happened to be walking in the other direction. The security guard ran to the business warden and stopped him, pointed to me, and openly asked him in front of me if he ‘knew me’, to which the business warden looked me up and down unconvincingly, and denied to the guard that he did (‘know me’).