Bouncer shot for telling clubbers to stop smoking

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Title – Bouncer shot for telling clubbers to stop smoking
Source – Evening Standard
Date – 24th July 2007

The smoking ban in England was a controversial issue. Non-smokers loved the idea and smokers felt abandoned and exiled into the cold. Some managers embraced it and others ignored it at their peril. But everyone had to enforce the ban to remain operational.

What few had anticipated, was that the ban would lead to aggression and violence. In the tragic case of James Oyebola, a Door Supervisor, ex-heavyweight boxer and Olympic bronze medallist, who was shot several times in the head and died in hospital a few days later, was that it was yet another flash point for door supervisors across the country to contend with. This senseless and cowardly killing just highlights further the dangers faced by staff (on or off duty) when they intervene to deal with even the most seemingly mundane situations.

Door Supervisors continue to work together to help each other maintain safety in their various workplaces. In many town centres organised schemes are in place to allow door supervisors to summon help when they need it from colleagues working in different venues in the same town. Sometimes these formal arrangements are backed up by radio communications, but they are also often informal arrangements where door supervisors simply know each other well and will socialise after work or check up on each other, in order to both inform themselves and to feel part of a community that looks after its own. When this is done in a professional way it can enhance the safety of individuals considerably and it makes what can be a very isolating job, feel more community based.

Door Supervisors get a very bad press, even now several years after the SIA introduced a system of licensing and eradicating the criminal element from the industry, the press still use the negative connotations in the word 'Bouncer' to describe those people that work the most antisocial hours, often in very hard conditions, for a relatively low rate of pay and spend every night putting themselves on the line to protect others and uphold the law.

James was more then a bouncer, he was an Olympian and a professional door supervisor working alongside colleagues to uphold the law.


Beyond The Blue is a Training, Consultancy and Event Management company set up to provide professional training to those working in the security industry and the licensed retail sector and to bring the professional skills now being recommended by the SIA and other sector bodies to a wider public and corporate organisations. Our Conflict Management & Resolution Course enables individuals working in any workplace where conflict occurs, to act effectively to resolve it before it turns to aggression or violence. For individuals wishing to get into door supervision, we also run National Certificate for Door Supervisors (NCDS).



Please visit our website at www.btbl.co.uk