An upcoming book on bodyguarding is the occasion for a visit to the Shropshire countryside to hear about close protection. Mark Rowe reports.
Kevin Horak’s book, The New Bodyguard, is with the printer. It’s been five years in the making – he is besides MD of bodyguard provider Clearwater Special Projects – and in that time UK close protection has seen the Security Industry Authority licence, and approved contractor status, come in. Clearwater is one of a handful of close protection (CP) companies SIA-approved.
Kevin Horak sits behind his desk. He wears black – suit, shirt and tie – and without my glasses I cannot make out his lapel badge; later I work out it’s for the Close Protection Federation. I ask about the book first. "It was clear there was a very real weakness in the market for a factual approach, not quoting from case examples and clients, of course, which is something we would never do; but trying to put something into writing to say, ‘this is the way it should be done’." It covers most of the core competency for the SIA licence and the forthcoming British Standard, while keeping an eye on the European and world market. Writing the book meant having to keep up with change, liasing with the SIA and training qualification bodies. While aimed at entry level – a £24.99 book is a wise investment before you spend thousands on a 150-hour course towards the SIA licence – Kevin adds that there’s enough in it for those who have been working in CP, to reflect on their standard operating procedures.
He goes through the 25 chapters, which includes a chapter of terms, because like other sectors of security, as Kevin says CP has an abundance of military and policing terminology. For instance later, while Kevin shows me around the grounds, he says there’s ‘no beasting’ – an Army word for punishing physical training. For one thing, there just isn’t time! and physical fitness is assumed, because in an emergency you may have to carry someone, or to run a mile.
Two topics not in the book are first aid; and close quarter battle (CQB) and self-defence training. They are important, Kevin says, but they are not things you can learn only from a book. Those chapters, then: who and what is the close protection operative; desirable characteristics; where do CP people come from? Whether to work as employed or self-employed, which is ‘one of the most important’, Kevin says; the principal, that is, the employer; how to prepare a CV and interview techniques, again, important yet often overlooked; the benefits and pitfalls of working solo and in a team; PES (personal security escort) team work, being responsible directly for the principal; work in a residential security team (RST – you see all the abbreviations!); advance security team, that is, work ahead of the principal arriving at a venue or home; vehicle drills, and embus and debus procedures – again, Army terms for getting in and out of a car; a chapter on buildings; search techniques, for people and vehicles; your dress and behaviour, in a word, etiquette, ‘even how to use the right knife and fork at the dinner table’; how to deal with the media, particularly important if your client is a celebrity; two chapters on threat assessment, including an example of a business, where the client is a chief executive; planning and reconnaissance; two chapters on bomb awareness and recognition; radio communications; surveillance, and basic anti-surveillance techniques; and finally use of firearms, abroad, because use of guns is not allowed in the UK. No wonder Kevin says the book could have been 1000 pages; instead it’s 300. On firearms training abroad, by the way, Kevin stresses the need to use authorised facilities and he says it beggars belief that there are firearms, sniper, and anti-aircraft courses publicly available, in this climate. That takes us on to SIA and ACS enforcement and a chance for us both to learn – Kevin to say how the regime’s being enforced in CP, me to report on manned guarding, which has the lion’s share of the number of licences and approved firms and presumably the SIA’s attention.
Seeking to relate CP to the average non-CP reader of Professional Security, I ask about CP characteristics. It’s fundamentally not true that you need a military background, Kevin says, though that gives you a head start, as does a policing background, because you are trained in etiquette, taking orders, things that make you more employable in CP. To be trained and qualified; that’s the law. Kevin lists next ‘keeping abreast of politics and world events’ and developing you CV, in a sector where experience is everything. "Making sure you keep busy – there’s no excuse for not working in the security business; there’s always work, but you can’t just walk in, you have to serve your time; and network. There are many good employers of close protection in the UK and you need to network with these companies ." He suggests also training in specialist skills, adding that it may take 15 years to become fully qualified to work in the CP sector. He notes that people such as accountants and solicitors take five. By 15 years he means, foreign languages maybe; criminal psychology and profiling; having a pilot’s licence; experience in maritime security; ‘it goes on and on. And to be honest life’s too short; you can’t do it all." He smiles. "There’s a lot you can do as an individual to make yourself employable, and there are lots of advanced skills that you can do." But he returns to etiquette, because if you are working with a chief executive, a member of foreign royalty, a grade A celebrity, etiquette counts for so much it may – and remember CP is a small sector where your experience, your CV, is everything – to repeat, etiquette may outweigh experience, if the experienced man’s etiquette is poor. As Kevin explains, if the CP person is standing next to the chief exec, or a royal, the CP man is a reflection of that principal. The bodyguard, then, has to walk and talk smoothly in those circles. And look the part, and not be grossly unfit. You do not need to be six foot tall and wide, as indeed Kevin Horak is not. That is one of several misconceptions about close protection.
Integrity matters, because in CP you are responsible for someone, or his family, or his assets – which may be gold or diamonds, or a new computer game yet to reach market. So you may be qualified, but if the employer is not sure of your integrity, your chances of employment are slim. Clearwater, as a company – besides Kevin there are Ian Dewsnip, ops manager, and Henry Pattison, senior ops manager – employs CP operatives as sub-contractors, so if something goes wrong, the responsibility is besides the individual’s, Clearwater’s; hence they are very careful who they employ.
Even within a relatively (compared with static guarding) small field as CP, there is specialism. The CP who works with foreign royalty or a corporate VIP, where blending in is all, or the CP with a special forces background, might not take to work in entertainment, being repeatedly photographed and in the papers, let alone next to a z-list celebrity. Again to relate CP to broader security, I ask about possible cross-over from manned guarding to CP, thinking that the guarding contractor who has work with a Premier League football club might fancy taking on some CP work for footballers. The most important question of all – money – I only remembered to ask later, while Kevin was showing me around the new and nice chalets that CP trainees stay in during the two-week SIA course each month. In the UK, bodyguard pay is £150 to £175 a day, very often more; and if you are in residential CP, that is, living in, £120 to £135 a day. So, it’s well above static guard pay rates, though remember you may well have some time between jobs. But before guarding MDs drive to their nearest Premiership stadium to ask for business; as Kevin points out, if you are doing work for a footballer, and he says he is going out for the night, and would you come with him, there you are stepping from contract guarding (a level two qualification) to close protection (a level three qualification).
Top footballers, execs and celebrities may require advance security, with its own specialisms. The VIP may well have a personal assistant who arranges the VIP’s itinerary – private or commercial jet, and so on. The advance security person’s task is to go ahead and ensure that the VIP is not held up at the hotel, or the airport. Kevin lists three elements to the CP job – physical protection, residential, and advance. If you are working for yourself, as Kevin says, hours can get unhealthily long – he mentions the European working time directive. Being there for the VIP, checking where he is staying is safe, and planning ahead for the next day, can be a 24-hour job if you are working solo. It’s dawning on me that one characteristic of CP has to be diplomacy.
Another cross-over is with private investigation and being a professional witness if the VIP is being stalked, and a task is to gather evidence to take a legal route against the stalker. This comes back to what Kevin said about further study, of forensics, and psychology – even if it’s just reading some books, it can be useful, for example when you make a threat analysis.
I ask about diplomacy, about how any security is a service, for a customer, and yet – I give the case I heard a few months ago of some conference in Manila, where a Dutchman got it into his head to go for a cycle ride at 2am. Presumably unwise; but how to say no to a VIP, whether a parliamentarian or a CEO, who is unused to being told what to do? Kevin says: "You have to be an exceptionally good diplomat, because the customer isn’t always right, but the customer is the customer." As he adds, all you can do in CP is be an effective deterrent, and advise the principal, but, certainly in the private sector, the principals decide what they do. If there is a threat, nine times out of ten, the CP moves away from it, avoids it: "We are not in the business of trying to take threats on; that is not effective security."
The appeal of CP, indeed, is that it’s not a nine to five; you are never in the same place with the same person. Always a new challenge – a cliché, as Kevin admits, but every phone call can mean a new job, maybe a new time zone. So that means going to new hotels, venues, airports, casinos, and liaising with the security people there. As Kevin says, it would be highly arrogant for the CP team or individual to walk into a venue and think they know more than the resident security. "I have met people like that; they aren’t good to deal with." Rather, wherever the CP team goes where’s a licenced security team, naturally the CP people will seek assistance, and the resident security people (who know their building better) are mostly happy to help. It suits both parties; the resident security people see something different, and maybe it sparks the idea to work in CP; and the CP team of say five can draw on the resident security team of say ten.
What if, I ask, the principal decides at short notice that he (and his family) wants to go to Alton Towers; or shopping? Recent technology – the mobile phone and the digital camera – has made the CP work with photographable celebs more difficult. The paparazzi can get a sniff of your changed itinerary and arrive before you do. Many people carry digital cameras that can take (sellable) photos. I recalled in one of the London free commuter newspapers from the day before, just such a case: Tom Cruise, his wife and child were in Hyde Park, and got snapped. So speaking generally; if a VIP makes an unscheduled stop, and is in some restaurant, shopping centre, or other public place, the CP team or individual has to adapt as best they can. Yes, the VIPs will have some interaction with the public, though thecelebrity may not want to be photographed. However, to repeat, the CP operative is the reflection of the principal. How would it look in the next day’s papers if the CP man told passers-by not to take photos? The CP person does not have the power to order someone to delete their digital snaps, or to confiscate their camera. Here, you feel, is the CP as diplomat again – having to deal with the public with common sense and proportion, while maybe getting a ticking off from the VIP who wants privacy. Tom Cruise like anybody else only has the right to privacy in private.
Kevin does mention the stabbing of the tennis player Monica Seles (during a rest break on court in a tournament in Hamburg). Yes, the risk to a VIP in public is there; but should sports stadia search everyone entering for knives? Close protection, like all security, has to be at an acceptable level; the CP individual has the same citizen’s powers as anyone else in private security. And yet CP has more glamour – maybe not, come to think of it, if you are on your feet in a nightclub or casino for hours; and waiting in even the first-class lounge of an airport must lose its initial appeal. Certainly to the outsider, CP has glamour – I mention the film The Bodyguard; Kevin makes the facial equivalent of saying ‘oh no!’. As Kevin says, if someone applies for work saying they want to be near celebrities, ‘that CV goes in the bin’. Nor is bodyguarding a way to become a celebrity.
That bodyguards are near celebs, though, has spawned assumptions – such as the one that the bodyguard is expendable, will lay down his life for the principal. (That, I recall, was the plot for the Clint Eastwood film In The Line of Fire). "We don’t train to die, we train to live," Kevin says. "It is an elitist part of the security industry. It isn’t meant to be arrogant; we are working with top-level clients and principals; we want the best people to work with them." Significantly, while the CP person isn’t asked to stop a bullet, he is asked to be away from home, and perhaps put his work ahead of his family. Hence the ex-military person may be more used to such a life. Again, though, Kevin does not rule out civilians in CP: one way in may be as the head of door supervisers at a club. You look after a TV soap star while he or she is in the building – the sort of actor who could face trouble from the star-struck or the drunken idiot, but not enough of a star to merit (or afford?!) a permanent bodyguard. One suspects that experienced close protection people can acutely measure whether a star is a-list or b-list and so on, just as they can sniff the Walter Mitty types who affect to be bodyguards. I suggest a similar way to get a taste of CP: a bookshop hiring a shopping centre guard to look after a celebrity at a book signing.
Hence Kevin’s book, so that someone interested in bodyguarding can read up before they commit thousands of pounds to, for example, Clearwater’s two-week CP course before taking the SIA exam. Kevin finally shows me around the grounds – next to a stately home. There’s outdoor football posts, and indoors a sports hall for the drills, and desks for the classroom learning, and acres to wander around. The chalets are all ensuite, and there’s a lovely converted half-timbered house. Only while Kevin shows me around do I think to ask about women – he reports a shortage, as indeed there has been for years, and as in some other specialist sectors of security. As I put it, for every David Beckham requiring close protection, there’s a Victoria Beckham. And Kevin does point out there are ever more female business executives, and female bodyguards can and do work with male principals, and the other way round.
It was not even as the remotely-operated gates opened to let me drive out, but later, that the penny dropped about the cover of Kevin’s book. Of the two men pictured, a fair chunk of the planet can name one of them: pop singer Michael Jackson. I had been talking to the other.
About Clearwater
An approved training centre of Edexcel, it’s a member of the British Association of British Security Companies (BAPSC). Visit www.bodyguarding.co.uk
