Kirkby's mini-Pentagon feeds the fishes in US

Feb 1 2007 by Larry Neild, Liverpool Daily Post

Aquarium fed and thieves caught with click of a mouse

JAMES BOND-STYLE technology is being used by a Merseyside security firm ... to feed fish in an aquarium in an American office 3,300 miles away.

Security staff at a fortress bunker in Kirkby can keep a watchful eye on tropical fish in the glass tank in Boston, Massachusetts, and feed the fish when they get hungry.

It takes control room operator Kevin Mahoney just the click of a computer mouse to release food.

He also uses sophisticated equipment to open and close doors in the Boston office, switch on heating or air conditioning, and also ensure computers are turned on and off.

More importantly, the hi-tech devices also enable staff at Sampson Security, in Kirkby, to keep a watchful eye on the premises 24-hours a day.

The company is based in a bomb-proof vault, with 14-inch thick concrete walls, on the Knowsley Industrial estate, once used as an impenetrable bunker by former occupants, AC Delco.

From a control room, highly trained staff keep a watchful eye on business premises and the homes of wealthy people across the country.

They use high specification CCTV, sensor systems, and computers to carry out their security and housekeeping duties. Ironically, businesswoman Zara Richards, managing director of Sampson, spent hours touring the US’s high security base, the Pentagon, as a teenager.

Her uncle works at the Pentagon and she was allowed in as an official visitor.

"I never imagined then that one day I would be running our own mini-Pentagon in Kirkby," the 40- year-old mother of four said last night.