ASA Adjudication on SAS Fire & Security Systems Ltd

Ad

A press ad for a home security and fire alarm stated “FREE ALARM + FREE RISK ASSESSMENT … FACT Burglary Every 37 seconds. 800 fires a day. House with No Security is 10 times more likely to be burgled ... “MIDDLE CLASS FAMILIES ABANDONED BY POLICE. Patrick Shearer, President of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS) said in the National Press last week that the idea of a universal Police Force for all belonged to a time when resources were plentiful. We have to accept that a lot of the public can look after themselves …THOUSANDS OF PRISONERS MAY BE FREED BY EU RULING. Again thanks to the National Press it has been reported that thousands of criminals in Scottish jails could be freed after it emerges that they may have been questioned illegally by Police. Offenders interviewed by officers without a solicitor before being charged could now be let out of prison. One senior legal source said the Crown Office was in a panic over the implications. The Crown Office denied that the prosecution service was ill prepared and that the Crown Office, The Scottish Legal Aid Board and the police have been working on a contingency plan for over a year. However combined with the recent news that the police have said that homeowners in particular middle class families will have to fend for themselves, it is a worrying time for homeowners”. The ad also featured an image of a masked burglar.

Issue

The complainant objected that the ad played on peoples fears about burglary and was likely to cause undue fear and distress.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

SAS Fire & Security Systems Ltd ("SAS") said the statistics quoted in the ad were derived from Home Office figures reported for 2009. They also said that they sourced the quote from the Crown Office from a published article in a local newspaper. SAS explained that burglars were often depicted in masks and believed the image used in the ad was consistent with that common depiction. SAS therefore believed they had acted in good faith to alert the public to the dangers of fire and crime.

Assessment

Upheld

The ASA understood that SAS had derived crime statistics from authoritative published sources. However, we considered that they were presented in a way that was likely to induce fear - for example, by references to journalistic coverage stating that thousands of criminals currently in jail could be freed and that the Crown Office was in "panic" and "ill prepared". Although we understood that burglars were commonly depicted as wearing masks, we considered that the image, in conjunction with alarming claims about the risk of burglary and the implication that homeowners could be abandoned by the Police, were likely to frighten readers, especially the elderly or those who lived alone.

We considered that phrases such as "Burglary Every 37 seconds ... THOUSANDS OF PRISONERS MAY BE FREED BY EU RULING" and "middle class families will have to fend for themselves, it is a worrying time for homeowners" were likely to cause undue fear and distress to homeowners about their safety and that of their property and concluded that the ad made an unjustifiable appeal to fear and breached the Code.

The ad breached CAP Code clauses 9.1 and 9.2 (Fear and distress).

Action

The ad must not appear again in its current form.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)