SECURITY fears were sparked when a father and his five-year-old son discovered the door of a bank near York had been left unlocked all night.

The front door of HSBC, in Market Place, Easingwold, had been unlocked for more than 19 hours when it was discovered by Daniel Pettigrew and his son, Oliver.

Mr Pettigrew was visiting the cash machine in the wall outside his local branch on a Saturday lunchtime when his little boy discovered the front door was unlocked. The bank had closed for business for the weekend at 4.30pm the previous day.

A spokeswoman for the bank said there had been a "malfunction" with the catch on the door.

Mr Pettigrew said: "Oliver vanished and then appeared again while I was at the cash point. He said Dad, the bank's open'.

"At first I thought he was joking and I said yeah, right'. But it was.

"When I realised the bank was empty and the service times said Monday to Friday. I phoned 999."

Mr Pettigrew, who is director of his own York-based training consultancy, walked right into the bank and saw computers lying on desks, which he claimed could easily have been stolen.

He and Oliver also walked right up to the door of the vault where money is kept.

Mr Pettigrew, of Dawnay Lane, Easingwold, said: "There was the big safe, right in front of us. I wish I'd taken a picture of it.

"There were computers and walkie talkies lying around in there. Anyone could have stolen them.

"The hard drives were there too. In the current climate it makes you wonder if anyone could have got the database with bank customers' details on it.

"There were no alarms going off or anything like that. If it hadn't been for Oliver that door could have been left open until Monday."

They stood guard at the bank until police officers arrived.

A North Yorkshire Police spokesman confirmed officers had received a call from Mr Pettigrew.

He said: "We received a call from a member of the public who said he was standing in the middle of the bank and the bank was supposed to be shut. He said there was no one around.

"We tried to contact HSBC and spoke to an out-of-area call centre.

"Police attended and found there was no sign of any break-in. The bank sent a representative from their security company."

Mr Pettigrew said: "Nobody even phoned us to say thank you. When I phoned the regional department and spoke to them about it, they didn't even know it had happened.

"They then sent Oliver a letter, saying he had saved the day. They offered him a book token, but I told them he had always wanted his own bank card and asked if they would open an account for him.

"They opened an account and put £10 in it. The only thing I was slightly disappointed with was the amount. We could have saved the bank thousands of pounds and yet all they gave him was £10."

A spokeswoman for HSBC, which made profits of about £11 billion in 2006, said there was no danger to bank customers.

She said: "Basically, what happened was there was a malfunction with the door catch. Once the door was pushed open it would have alerted the police anyway.

"It was very sweet of Mr Pettigrew and his son to do the right thing and alert the police and we opened an account for him to say thank you."

She said the doors were all part of a CCTV network and linked to London, so security would have been alerted once the door was opened.

"There would have been no danger to customers in terms of cash or information being stolen. Obviously we don't want any security issues, but sometimes these things can happen."


Security breach fear

A HUMAN rights watchdog has hit out at the potential security breach.

Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said it was an "extraordinary state of affairs" which could have exposed thousands of customers to a "grave risk".

He said: "It is sadly to be expected in a way.

"I cannot believe that a bank would not have procedures in place to make sure all exits are sealed at close of business.

"This is a situation I have never encountered before.

"It is a failure on multiple levels - on the human level and on the technical level and what it does is expose thousands of customers to a grave risk.

"It could be that the computers are part of a central control system and are password protected, and contain no information locally, in which case you don't have the same level of threat.

"But if they are just password protected then someone could have gained access to the whole central resource of data."