Incident with male security guard

[Femalespaces]

My daughter works at a store within a supermarket. They have to use the public toilets. This morning she went to the toilet before her shift at like 7.30 am. Women toilets and locked in a cubicle with her lower clothes down using the toilet.
She was aware someone had come in the toilet. But all of a sudden without the door being knocked a foot appeared under the door and he opened it from the outside and opened the door. She says she screamed and pulled the handle up and said ‘what are you doing?’
As she left the toilet he tried to speak to her. She phoned me in a panic and I advised her to report it straight to her manager. She said the manager said ‘yes he does it sometimes. There is a problem with the toilets and then can lock shut with no one in them’.

Ive told my daughter this isn’t good enough. And to raise it with the manager of the store. My daughter is young (just post school age). The woman involved could have been a child or ND etc and as a woman who has been raped I feel sick. I have drafted a letter very quickly I’m at work - please can I have your advice

this is the letter I have so far
3rd September 2025

Dear Sir/Madam (The Manager) of X Supermarket at X location

This morning Wednesday 3rd September 2025, I received a very distressed phone call from my daughter X. X has recently started work at X, within the X supermarkert.
She left for work about 7.30am and before her shift upon arriving at the store she went into the FEMALE toilets at the store to use the toilets. She was in a cubicle and the cubicle was locked. She was using the toilet for intended purposes. She was aware of someone coming in after her, but could not hear what they said. The toilet door was locked.
To her horror a foot appeared under the door and then someone attempted to open it from the outside. She immediately screamed and pulled the handle up and screamed ‘what are you doing?’. The door had been opened from the outside.
The man involved was the security guard from the store.
This is totally and utterly traumatising for X who phoned me in a panic and distressed whilst I was on my way to work. Horrifyingly she immediately reported it to her manager, X at X who said ‘I don’t like it either, he does it sometimes. The toilets can get locked without anyone in it so he says he check them’.
THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE for multiple reasons.

1. Biological male are NOT allowed in FEMALE safe spaces -this is a UK Ruling
2. He opened the door on a female user when it was locked
3. This is an assault
4. It sounds like he has done this before from what DD has been told.

This is utterly terrifying. Speaking as a woman who has been sexually assaulted myself, female only spaces are protected. I can not see why a male is in there, or indeed in there at all given his position.

I need help please - help with drafting a letter
[Post edited by MNHQ to remove name]

I agree with all you are saying, other than calling for a female colleague. Unfortunately I know of situations where waiting even a few minutes for others to open the door may led to a different result.

Being a security guard or cleaner is the type of job where you become aware of this. When it may be an emergency, like a cardiac arrest, every minute counts so you can use a defibrillator. 11% of cardiac arrests happen on the loo. Honestly it can be upsetting to deal with and will affect how you deal with situations in the future. People collapsed behind a locked door (not necessarily toilets) are most common rescue for the London fire brigade. A lot of people will have had the experience and that’s why toilet doors are supposed to be able to be opened from the outside as it’s where people take drugs/ go when they are feeling ill/ self harm.

However, although this contextualises design, I am going into hypotheticals now, for this is a different situation.

OP I hope your daughter is ok. You have good some good responses of what to say and what to do from previous posters.

This means that a deaf person, who is on the loo not on the floor, should simply expect to have someone open the door at any time, just in case?

Or are we supposed to put a sign on the door saying “deaf person in here”?

This is a serious question. People who otherwise consider themselves very much on board with looking out for disabled people frequently don’t think about the implications of not being able to hear. Our access needs are rarely considered when designing public spaces! (See also painting zebra crossings in different colours, which makes it very hard for blind and visually impaired people to get around.)

I agree that its a blind spot.

Something like turning off and on the lights to what should be an empty room or using a mop/broom (normally stored close to the toilets anyway) under the door to prompt a verbal or physical knock.

And I can understand some of the risk as I (with hearing) was once not alerted by the fire alarm (false thankfully) as some genius decided not to put any alarm into a sound proof meeting room.

So a few points to clarify
I I wrote the letter (draft) in about 4 minutes before I went into a meeting. Points that people have mentioned are fully taken into account.

I’m only just home and daughter and her manager have done the following:
daughter has written a log of the incident
her store manager then emailed the incident to the other store manager
she was spoken to by other store manager and they said it was being taken seriously the man involved is part of their contracted cleaning crew :
if it was part of his job to clean the female toilets - we don’t know
we do know - he had no cleaning materials on him, there was no cleaning sign and we know he followed her in
we do know- he did not announce himself or knock on the door and he unlocked it from the outside without announcing himself or knocking

the following points have been raised

1. no knocking
2. no announcement
3. no time to open the door
4. no communication with her- large foot appeared and the handle was lifted and door unlocked in one movement and door opened - she was sitting on the toilet at the time and screaming at him what are you doing? Yanked the handle and shut the door and held it locked until she heard him leave
5. apparently it has happened (I believe with the same man) before to other people his reason to them the toilet isn’t flushing so it is locked from the outside again don’t know the details but again they need to look into this

he said he did it without announcing assuming no one was in - so that he can do maintenance- this was his reasoning and what he has said before (allegedly to other women) when other women have had it done to them. He had no cleaning materials or maintenance materials and he followed her in. She says she went in, locked the door she was aware someone was behind her and that someone else came in, just after she locked the door, she removed lower clothes and sat on toilet and then door opened without warning.

I understand the cleaning company is a contractor and not an employee directly of the supermarket. The store manager and Head office are both aware. Due diligence now needs to be done and a formal investigation needs to take place.

They are also aware of other concerns she could have been under 18, deaf, unable to get up quickly etc or freeze if the door had been opened etc.

investigation has been started.

apologies for my earlier letter people were right it needed to be her letter, her words and sexual assault (mine) is not relevant. So all of those have been removed.

This was my mistake she said he was in a high vis jacket and with the store manager identified him part of the cleaning crew (without any cleaning equipment) not the security guard. But he (apparently same man) has done it to other women.

not staff toilets either - these are public store toilets female

It most certainly could be seen as sexual assault of voyeurism.
OP, forget about the letter, call the police.

Bloody hell OP. Well done for you and your daughter raising it. Why wasn’t it taken seriously before?

In terms of the flush, he made not need many materials except a screwdriver or Allen key but the protocols and procedures are not on. How many other women was is supposed to have happened to?

If he is a contractor why has the Manager not phoned the service provider after the first incident and barred him off the property?

Or why was that not done today?

Amazing how this man has managed to do this to other women in the past, and not learnt anything from it. He's either extremely unlucky, or a pevert who knows exactly what hes doing.

Your poor daughter, this must have been really frightening. I hope the store have called the police. If the manager knew he did this as a pattern of behaviour but didn't address it, then the company could be in serious trouble.

https://www.acas.org.uk/sexual-harassment

'Sexual harassment is unwanted behaviour of a sexual nature. The law (Equality Act 2010) protects the following people against sexual harassment at work:

• employees and workers
• contractors and self-employed people hired to personally do the work
• job applicants

To be sexual harassment, the unwanted behaviour must have either:

• violated someone's dignity
• created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for someone

It can be sexual harassment if the behaviour:

• has one of these effects even if it was not intended
• intended to have one of these effects even if it did not have that effect

Who is responsible Employers must take steps to prevent sexual harassment happening in the first place. Employers can be held responsible for the actions of employees. This is called vicarious liability. Employers also have a responsibility – a 'duty of care' – to look after the wellbeing of their employees. Not doing this could lead to a serious breach of an employee's employment contract. If an employee feels they have no choice but to resign, the employer could face a claim of sexual harassment and constructive dismissal. Anyone who sexually harasses someone at work is also responsible for their own actions. Discrimination complaints and employment tribunal claims can be made against individuals as well as employers.'

You or your daughter can call Acas for advice, there's a helpline.

Apparently cleaning company manager (contractors) wasn’t in the office today but is in tomorrow morning so the store manager is contacting them first thing tomorrow.

Im not sure if the cleaner involved was told to go home or not to come in tomorrow. She isn’t working in the morning and won’t use the public toilets again.

Like many women I think you might be confused or second judge yourself if a cleaner opened the door - my daughter was going back over it in her mind eg did he mumble something, did he knock ? Had she just not heard - she’s off to uni in a couple of weeks and something like this has never happened to her before.

She reacted instinctively yank the handle back up and scream and then ring me. She hadn’t started her shift at the other store she was in the supermarket public toilets and I was like - go speak to your manager now and log it. The manager - it sounded like he had done it before but managed to persuade someone that the door was sticking / not locked or something I think 🤔 not sure. I don’t know - but he could have done it well before.

I am trying not to let my own experiences cloud my head - a driving instructor told me at aged 17 to relax my left leg when driving and then ran his hand up by inner thigh and right into my crotch and told me to relax it. He then offered a free lesson and told me he liked me and could do me discounts. I told my friend and she had referred me - and she said ‘oh I thought it was an accident and I was too tense’ when he did it to me. I would never have told my parents as they would have victim blamed me. I have been in situations where I have doubted me and my head and tried to find ‘an innocent explanation’. She was crying and upset and I was in all honestly extremely upset. Head office and the store manager plus her store manager are all aware. Huge supermarket chain and public toilets - manager assured me safety of their customers is their priority. Not just their employees but everyone on the premises and he said it was a very serious incident.

Hopefully they won’t just tell the cleaning company not to send him back. Hopefully the issue will change protocols / staff training etc and be dealt with properly. I can’t think of a single good reason for not knocking on a locked toilet door before opening. I would imagine the outside of the toilets is covered by cctv but I’m not sure

Where did you get he slammed the door open from. It isn't what is in the OP.

In our world where the majority of cleaning staff are female, it just seemed very bizarre the amount of men who seem to operate in female toilets at places like service stations, et cetera. I think a total ban on male operatives in female toilets should be the policy of this supermarket, there is no way that man was behaving innocently at all.

@Femalespaces I still don't think your daughters managers are dealing with this at all appropriately or well. Since this has happened before and they haven't done anything about it, I wouldn't have any confidence in them to respond appropriately now, and I wouldn't feel confident that my daughter would be safe at work there.

I echo another PP who said call the police, although it's likely they won't do anything (in my personal experiences of this sort of thing, they're completely useless!), but it's worth a try.

I also apologise for taking up space in your thread for what I'm going to say next.

I'm going to try this again now I've had a day to calm down a bit.

In my opinion, and to borrow MemorableTrenchcoat's word, it is disgusting that Hoppinggreen and MemorableTrenchcoat replied as they did to my original post.

I find it disgusting that I my posts have been reported for swearing at them to "go away" and for describing them using a swear word as "unpleasant".

I understand that I broke talk guidelines, the swearing could be considered a personal attack, but given the context, I think my replies were relatively mild.

One of my posts was removed for troll hunting because I expressed my opinion that this sort of behaviour is the type of thing we usually see from bad faith posters.

In fact, I was quite deliberately careful not to accuse the posters of actually being trolls and if you go back and read the post left standing you can read for yourself that it was couched in the terms "if they are, well done them for succeeding in upsetting me". This is not troll hunting, just pointing out IMO some unpleasant behaviour.

What happened is still very raw for my family, it didn't happen very long ago. Obviously what happened has effected my relative the most, and in a life changing way.

Because the replies from those two poster to my original post were such unexpected and IMO odd responses from posters in FWR, I found it incredibly upsetting and struggled to articulate that without getting sweary. It wasn't my finest moment, but I think probably quite understandable to a lot of you.

I think it's utterly ridiculous that MemorableTrenchcoat pulled me up on my "disgusting language", presumably we are all adults here? Especially given the language was in response to the IMO awful replies to my original post - which to remind everyone was me telling the OP how my young relative was raped in the workplace by another staff member.

I notice that neither poster has replied to the questions posted in my subsequent post, which I will repeat here after editing the emotional response out. The copy of the original post (which was reported and deleted) is still on page 2 for those that want to contrast and compare the original with the sanitised version.

"How is this an ok response to me relaying my relatives experience of rape at her workplace by another staff member?

(Edited to remove this line which was an emotional question.)

Is it scaremongering for me to say to the younger women in my family to be careful on a night out and to never leave a drink unattended because someone might spike it? Because that happened to me.

Where is the (edited to remove a swear word) line between this happened to me / someone I know, and scaremongering?

Is anyone who suggests a way to keep women safe scaremongering, or is it only when it's regarding trying to keep as safe from being raped as possible?"

I will add, how are we supposed to help keep young women safe if we can't point out that awful things sometimes happen? Yes it's scary, I'd even go so far as to say terrifying, but it's clear that my intention was not to frighten the OP, but to try and prevent what happened to my relative from happening to another young woman. I'd say that is part of what FWR is supposed to be about, isn't it?

Apologies again for taking up space in the thread to Femalespaces, however I do think my questions above are important in context.

I agree with pp that you need to refer it to the police and get an incident number. It may not go any further but it will be logged. You then tell the store this because they then may treat it more seriously. In previous posts I have said what the man might say in his own defence but it is increasingly unlikely from your further posts.

I know men have put on hi-vis jackets to go into ladies toilets before just in case that is used as some sort of mitigation by them. If you need any notes in the future please ask - the last thing you need is to be ‘doomscrolling’ toilets. It’s obvious this shouldn’t have happened.

Your daughter has her mum sticking up for her and prepared to go a stage further than others who should have before. I hope this doesn’t cloud the excitement of her getting ready for university xx

This is concerning.

In my workplace we have a male cleaner and he is scrupulous about announcing himself when entering the female changing rooms.

The loo (a lockable cubicle with full floor to ceiling door is inside the CR). If I go in to use the loo while he is cleaning the changing room he always leaves even if I say I’m happy for him to carry on (due to the nature of my day me waiting until he has finished isn’t usually possible as it would stop the entire theatre list for the duration of my absence).

I don’t want to derail but want to reply to this. No one should have the door open on them unless it’s needed. But everyone should expect it can. That’s why it’s important to have a small door gap so the occupant is aware of their surroundings by sight/sound and who’s about. In this case, the OP’s daughter knew it was a man and one of the reasons was because of his shoe. She knew instantly he shouldn’t be in there before he could get in so her instincts and correct judgement kicked in.

It is right you should be able to open every toilet from the outside which is a huge reason that it is correct to have single sex toilets. A collapsed person behind any locked door is the number one call out for the London Fire Brigade. Every minute counts if you are dealing with a medical emergency. Single sex toilets are the only ones under building regs that don’t have to have full height doors and partitions. You can instantly see if there is a problem so that’s no excuse to open the door ‘just in case’. In reality, no one routinely tries to get in. People can be left for hours or even days in locked, enclosed loos in very public areas.

Re deafness and toilets. I think visual+sound emergency alarms should be in every cubicle if it’s full height but I have spoken to architects on here that say they don’t put them in as people aren’t expected to be in a cubicle that long. The emergency alarms are often located just in front of the cubicles on the ceiling so everyone in the cubicles can see light if they have gaps above the doors.

Hi @Keeptoiletssafe just a plop post to link you to the org which has looked at toilet assess metrics from a disability viewpoint

https://www.accessable.co.uk/venues/stevenage-swimming-centre

Sorry OP for the side track

ive worked as security ..so yes im probably more informed than you...have a great day my lovely xxx

I just don’t see how given it was so quiet he would have followed a young female into the door - no cleaning signage or anything and unlocked the door from the outside without warning …..unless it was with ill intent. The manager of the supermarket said when cleaning is in progress, sign goes up, door is propped open and no toilet is opened from the outside. He said (the supermarket store) as far as he was aware there is nothing wrong with the locks or plumbing of the toilets at that time as this would be indicated clearly eg toilet blocked out of service on the door.

I believe from what my daughter has said he has done it to other female workers using the public toilets again without warning and claimed the door locks were ‘jamming’ and he was ‘checking the mechanics’ - but my daughter is hearing this 3 rd hand, so a fact finding needs to take place.

Head office of the supermarket, the manager of the local supermarket and the manager of the local different store inside the supermarket are all aware. There is an email log (from supermarket head office) my daughter’s store manager has forwarded on her complaint to the other store manager outlining my daughter’s report and my daughter has written her own letter detailing exactly what happened and her concerns (2 sides of A4) but very factual but also detailing her concerns for the public and females using the space which should be safe.

She wasn’t in working today and we will see what happens tomorrow. Her manager has also send her texts updating her (and told her she has sent them so my daughter doesn’t just have a verbal log of what they have done but a written log - this was kind of them and it means my daughter has a paper trail.

Unfortunately I can see scenario where a man gets away with this eg cleaner and goes in and unlocks a door and opens it and the woman is thinking - oh my god I mislocked the door my fault & he says ‘I’m sorry’ or whatever - it’s an accident an oversight and therefore doesn’t report it. Some men get a kick out of it seeing if they can get a look, or distress a woman. I can also see scenarios where they take on staff with no references or no checks (my daughter worked for a cafe last year and the manager never asked for ID or anything) and men with ill intentions are employed and when something like this happens, someone needs to report and be vocal (lots of people don’t want to do this or lose their job or be seen as a trouble maker) or that cleaner gets a wrist slap and moved on to a different job - maybe an office out of hours - but this wouldn’t address their behaviour long term. We all know sadly that incidents of this type are unlikely to be an accident - it’s pushing behaviour to see what happens - like male flashing leads to other more serious behaviour. I’m not saying it will happen here but sadly most of us have experienced something by the time they get to my age and you are fortunate if you haven’t!!

I just don’t see how given it was so quiet he would have followed a young female into the door - no cleaning signage or anything and unlocked the door from the outside without warning …..unless it was with ill intent.

Trust your instincts @Femalespaces, he had ill intent you are absolutely correct!

Well done to both of you. She's been brave enough to report and you've supported her in that. She's played a part in keeping women and girls safe - I hope she's feeling ok herself and can focus on the action she's taken since rather than on the incident itself.

Well done to your dd for reporting. I hope the store do a thorough investigation.

Agree wholeheartedly @Femalespacesit doesn’t add up. Just so sorry to hear she had to deal with it.