A recent SIA prosecution sets out plainly where liability sits when an unlicensed operative is put to work. Mark Tilley, a door supervisor in the Weymouth area, kept working at multiple venues after his SIA door supervisor licence expired in June 2024. He pleaded guilty at Weymouth Magistrates' Court on 2 September 2025 to two offences under section 3 of the Private Security Industry Act 2001 and one offence under section 1 of the Fraud Act 2006. On 25 November 2025 he was fined £80 per offence and ordered to pay a £96 victim surcharge and £164 costs, £500 in total.
The more instructive part is what happened to the employer. Chesil Security Ltd was convicted of two offences under section 5 of the PSIA — supplying unlicensed security — and fined £400 with £500 costs and a £160 victim surcharge. The company director, William Joynes, was convicted of offences across sections 5, 19, 22 and 23 of the Act and, on 26 January 2026, given a 12-month community order including 50 hours of unpaid work, plus £500 costs and a £114 surcharge. SIA Criminal Investigations Manager Nicola Bolton said Joynes "knowingly deploying an unlicensed security operative through his company Chesil Security Ltd... put the public at risk for his own profit."
For anyone running a security firm or deploying subcontracted operatives, the takeaway is the liability chain. The unlicensed individual is committing an offence, but so is the company that supplies them and so, personally, can the director who deployed them. Licence expiry is the easy trap: a lapsed licence is the same as no licence in law. The operational fix is dull and reliable — check every operative's licence status before each deployment, track expiry dates rather than relying on the operative to flag them, and keep the evidence that you did. The cost of the check is nothing against a director's conviction.
