Award for Elephant security guards who "cleaned up" shopping centre

The team of 20 security officers at the shopping centre beat 2,000 entries from colleagues employed by First Security to win the team of the year award.

"It comes as no surprise to me that the team at The Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre has won this year's award," says centre manager Mike Knell.

"The work that they have put in over the past 24 months has been incredible and they are thoroughly deserving of this recognition."

Supervisors Emmanuel Orimolye and Seth Lartely collected the award at a ceremony held in December at the Institute of Directors in Pall Mall.

Speaking at the presentation, Mr Knell explained: "I wanted to clean up the shopping centre by getting rid of the beggars, pick pockets, vandals and shoplifters, as we had to do something to make the shopping centre a safer place for people to come to."

He added: "The team also regularly assist the robbery squad and other units with CCTV coverage which has been crucial in obtaining convictions."