What happened
In October 2020 a 33-year-old man turned up at the headquarters of Salix Homes, Diamond House, off Eccles New Road in Salford. The building was closed to the public because of Covid restrictions. He wanted the keys to a property in Pendleton that had been offered to him, and he had become impatient about how long it was taking.
He had been calling, texting and emailing his housing officer up to eight times a day. He was spoken to outside the building, then followed the officer to her car, shouting and banging on the window. He then began swinging a bike chain outside and called Salix Homes’ contact centre to threaten to kill everyone inside. The officer was left shaken and unharmed.
The outcome
Salix Homes went to the civil court. At Manchester Civil Justice Centre in January 2021 the court granted a 12-month civil injunction with a power of arrest. It stopped the man entering the area around Salix Homes’ offices in Weaste and stopped him behaving in a threatening, violent or nuisance way towards its employees and contractors. It ran until 28 October 2021.
Salix Homes withdrew the offer of the property. Its chief executive said: “Salix Homes will not tolerate violence or aggressive behaviour towards our employees.”
What went wrong
The man was not unknown to the organisation. One officer was the named recipient of up to eight calls, texts and emails a day, which is a record of escalating contact that somebody was receiving on their own.
The sources record no risk assessment of him and no earlier flagging of his behaviour. They show front-of-house staff at a closed building dealing with a man who had come to demand keys, and the officer outside with him, alone, when he followed her to her car.
What it teaches
Waiting lists and allocations are a foreseeable flashpoint. Frustration builds over weeks, the organisation is the target, and the person on the receiving end is an individual officer with a phone number and a car.
Three things follow. Front-of-house staff need to know who is high-risk before the person arrives, not after. Every call, text, email and voicemail needs recording as it happens, because that record is what supports an injunction. And leaving is part of the visit: where the car is, and who walks out with whom.
The injunction is worth noticing for what it is. A civil order with a power of arrest was the remedy available, and it rested on a documented pattern of contact and one afternoon.
Questions for the room
- A caller has contacted you eight times today and is now at the office. What changes about how you open the door?
- Where is your car when a difficult meeting ends, and who walks out with you?
- If you needed an injunction next week, could you produce the record of the threats?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: confirmed, on the record’s mark, from Salix Homes’ own news page and the Manchester Evening News, both published in February 2021. The two disagree on the date: the pack dates the incident to October 2020 and the injunction to January 2021, while the record says February 2021, which is when both pieces were published. The pack’s date is used here, and the twelve-month term running to 28 October 2021 fits it. The man is not named because he was not convicted of anything.
Our lone working training covers the office door, the car park and the walk between them.
Sources
- Salix Homes · Man banned from housing office after making threats to kill · 2021
- Manchester Evening News (Neal Keeling) · Man threatened to kill housing officers after getting impatient at wait for new home · 2021
Reviewed 20 October 2026.