Don Randall MBE – Lessons learnt from a lifetime in counter terrorism

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Hello and welcome to Totally Terrorism, a Pool Re podcast. My name is Oliver Hair, a Threat Analyst at Pool Re. In this episode, we're joined by Don Randall, here to discuss his long and illustrious career within the security industry. We'll talk about Don's first hand experiences of the IRA bombings as a senior police officer, his experiences of mitigating terrorism threat during his time at both JP Morgan and the Bank of England, as well as his beliefs and experiences related to the importance of public private partnership in mitigating terrorism threat, and how the terrorism threat landscape will evolve in the next 5 to 10 years. We hope you enjoy this episode of Totally Terrorism, and if you would like to hear future episodes, please like and subscribe through your streaming app of choice or sign up for regular updates through our Knowledge Centre at poolre.co.uk/knowledge-centre. Don Randall, welcome to Totally Terrorism.

Guest Expert: Don Randall MBE

It's my pleasure to be here, Ollie.

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Thanks very much for coming on. I just thought to start with, could you please give a summary of your background and perhaps the professional experience which has led you to be speaking with me today?

Guest Expert: Don Randall MBE

My pleasure. So we're talking 50 years of life in security. I joined the City of London Police Cadets in 1967 and the regular force in 69’. And basically, following an early start in uniform. I moved into the detective field and around the age of 30, into fraud investigation. In those days, they used to flip you from uniform, CID, uniform, every so often. So, I was in the fraud squad for a good few years, then back to division, and in the late 80s when we were particularly being focused on by Irish terrorism, I was actually a Detective Superintendent in the fraud squad, but we were all working together. And I guess, the point that would interest most of your listeners will be my period, 1993 to 1995, for both the Bishopsgate and St. Mary Axe bombs, which we can reflect back on in a few moments. I left British Policing in 1995 after 25 years’ service. It was a period of time when to get to the very top, the academia side of policing was beginning to hit, and that was never my forte. And also, I just had had a marvellous career and I decided to leave. I didn't leave because of money, I just left because I wanted an alternative operation. 

And, I joined JP Morgan, as it was then, on the 16th of January 1995. Just a little side note of pleasure for your readers, my mum sadly died in 84, but she was my inspiration, when she was 64, and I remember my first time working in Wall Street for JP Morgan and I looked up in the skies and said “I'm working in Wall Street, mum”, you know, which is pretty something significant. So I was there 14 years, we can talk about that. As the international Director of Security, basically I had responsibility for everything outside of America, which I think included about 36 countries with a total of 53,000 employees across the world; so Australasia, EMEA, Africa, India. I think Tahiti was my responsibility, but I never quite got there. And then I suffered a heart attack in 2007, and it's very difficult to keep up the pace of someone like JP Morgan when we could be sitting here today and tomorrow morning I need to be in Vietnam for some reason. 

So, I left and I joined the Bank of England, August 2008, as the Director of Security. And my second point of talking to my mum in the skies was, I stood on the steps of the Bank of England on the I think it was again the 16th of August 2008 and looked up and said “Mum, I'm now the Director of Security at the Bank of England”. The only thing I didn't have was the furled umbrella, which I guess people would suspect comes with the job as Director of Security. We can talk about that time as well. It's quite interesting. 

And then I left, I always intended when I was 65 to do something different. The 4th chapter in my career, and I left, well I stayed advising the bank for a year, but I left in 2015, and created my own company. I'm not a lover of the word consultant Ollie. I like the word advisor. I think advisory makes you more part of the family, whereas a consultancy, and people might criticise this, but they just sort of, you know, in consultancy you deliver a package and say that's it, walk away. In an advisory role, I think you add more value to the project you've got. 

And I guess the other thing which your listeners may find interesting, and we can develop, is my pro bono work. I guess, I don't do social media, I know people want me to do social media, they post me on social media, but I don't do it. I never have, but you can find me on Google as I'm sure you have. So, but yeah, I guess the key points on that, on public private partnership, which I'm sure you'll want to talk about, are Project Gryphon, CSSC, and most recently for the last 18 months, the extensive work we're doing on prevention of violence against women and girls, domestic abuse. So that's 50 years in about two and a half minutes, but there's a lot more padding in between that Ollie.

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Perfect. That's absolutely fascinating. You speak of your 4th chapter, and that is, yeah, quite the book. But if we could go back, perhaps to the start of your career or your earlier experiences. As you mentioned, and as our audience will be aware, Pool Re was formed in direct response to the IRA bombing campaign on the UK mainland. And you have mentioned how you played a direct role within the police service as a senior police officer during that time from 1993 to about 1995. I was wondering if you could perhaps provide more detail on that time, what your role specifically was, but also, I'm very interested to get a better understanding of what terrorism in the UK and what that campaign that the IRA were conducting at that time, felt like in the UK. What did terrorism feel like for members of society at that time?

Guest Expert: Don Randall MBE

Yeah, I think interestingly enough, as a young constable, I think in 1972, I might get the year wrong, together with my colleague at the time, Brian Renault, I was first on scene at the Tower of London bombing, which was the first mainland UK Irish terrorist attack. If you remember, the Tower of London, the White Tower, and we never experienced that before. You know, we didn't know about secondary devices. And you know, I remember, I believe Dorothy Houseman was the name, she died. There were several, several New Zealand tourists there who suffered serious injuries. And there was no support function then, you know, there was nothing. You just, at the end of your shift, you went home, you know, you dealt with it at the scene. If memory serves me rightly, I think the device exploded around 2:15 in the afternoon, which was a shift change overtime. And that was the first experience. But the period, if we go back to that period, of the late 80s, early 90s. So you'll recall there was one period I think where there was 1 device a day in London. You know, we talk about the Selfridges bombs, we talk about the Hyde Park and everything, but we were getting one device a day and I guess the big difficulty between then and now was they didn't want to die with their device, they wanted to hurt, maim, kill others. And so that was a massive challenge, whether it be incendiary devices, whether it be major devices. So I think as a country, we were in fear. London definitely, because we were the principal target of attack. And you may recall that in Camden there was a strong Irish quarter which didn't tend to get attacked, but near the end of that campaign it did get attacked. So, you know I think people, you know, you remember the incendiary devices put in the clothes in some of the big West End stores. You'll remember also that, and your listeners will remember that, one of the explosives officers was killed in, I think it was the KFC or one of the McDonald's in Oxford Street. 

You know, it was a difficult, difficult time, and something we’ll talk about also is that, you know, following the St. Mary Axe bomb, which was quite tragic, and interestingly enough, I'd moved out of running the operational arm of the Fraud Squad ten days before the St. Mary Axe Bomb. And then, of course, one year later, almost to the day we had the Bishopsgate bomb, which you might want me to talk a bit more about? The Bishopsgate bomb? 

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Yeah. Absolutely. 

Guest Expert: Don Randall MBE

OK. I think, and sadly one person died, as we know, but the Bishops Gate bomb is seen as, I think it's seen and recorded as such, if you look at the template for an Irish mainland device methodology at that time, it was seen as the best model because we'd learned a little from Saint Mary Axe, we'd learned, we practised the principle of invacuation versus evacuation. So on that morning, which I think was the 24th of April, and I don't make light of this, but I was in my office at Wood Street at about 8:00 in the morning and, I joke, and sometimes say that's because I was so dedicated I came in on Saturday morning, I sometimes say it’s because I was so inefficient I had to catch up with my work during the week. But I happened to be in my office, and she's sadly not with us now, one of the control room inspectors, the lady called Anne Reese came down and said “we've got a problem, Sir”. And I'm in my jeans and a T-shirt as you would be on a Saturday morning. And for those who are old enough, we had telexes then, we didn't have iPads, we didn't have computers, we had telex. I said “no, I'm reading the telex”. And she said, “no, Sir, I think we've got the problem”. So, I went up to the control rooms on the 4th floor and there on the CCTV cameras was the bomb, or the lorry, sitting in Bishopsgate. 

We'd already received a couple of coded messages but, and I can't remember the exact detail, but they referred to Bishopsgate as the A12, well, we never referred to Bishopsgate as the A12, you know the A12 comes from Colchester down to London, and they kept saying and the messages were coming in, and we won't talk about coded messages, but you know, the accuracy of the coded message was debatable, so we started the system rolling. And we clearly did have the problem. We didn't know if you know, we had information that said that there was a device in the United Kingdom and we had a lorry parked outside Saint Ethelburga's Church, opposite the HSBC building. So we're putting two and two together, we had the problem, but whether the problem was going to explode was perhaps discussable. But we worked on the principle it was. Called the bomb squad, put the relevant cordons in place. And in those days, we had just actually made a switch between military expo and civilian expo, explosive officers. And in those days, and this is open knowledge now, but you see the robots, you know, the mechanical robots. In those days, they were on the end of a cable, not wireless as they are now. And so, effectively the cordon area, the robot couldn't get to the device. There are arguments about whether had it still been military then they would have deployed individuals as opposed to a robot. And just as a subtle thing, which I think we can say now, I can remember the sergeant in charge of the control room, he said “I've got the expo officer on the line”. And, I guess by virtue of their profession, there's always a piece of macabre humour in their work. And, I'd say “Yeah, hi. How are you?”. And, he said “do you want the good news or the bad news?”. And I said, “just give me the good news”. He said, “we're here”. And I said, “what's the bad news?”. He said, “we can't, we can't diffuse it”. I said, “Ok, thanks for that”. Phone down. Put the whole operation in place and interestingly enough, we put 400 and 200 metres. We just worked out, without science, that 200 metres for a personal device and 400 metres for a vehicle borne device. 

And I think one of the best decisions of my life was, and at that time, we’d proffered the internal invacuation. And I remember watching the cameras. We got the machines working, everything's happening. And I see three people walk out of the Bank of Kuwait. I think it was in Bishopsgate, literally adjacent to where the bomb was. And so, there's two famous cars in the City of London. It used to be called Alpha 7 and Alpha 8. They're now called CP7 and CP8. So I actually asked CP7 to go down the backside of Bishopsgate with St. Mary Axe with their loud hailer just saying, “stay in the building, stay in the building. Don't go out”.  There's a secret to that, and if I miss it, drag me back, Ollie. In between that time, the sergeant says, “oh, I've got HSBC Bank on the line and they said they've got about 75 people in the building. What should they do?”. And I said, “put them in the basement”. But we never tested. You know, it was Tim Hilliers, my former colleague and my boss, it was his initiative to do internal invacuation. But it had never been tested. And he turned around, I remember, and sadly, Ian’s now passed away, Ian Dermot, and he said, “they haven't got a basement”. And I said words to the effect of, “every office in this city has a basement, ok, put them in the basement”. And all 76 went to the basement, and we'll come back to that. 

Alpha 7 is going down the back of Bishopsgate and then boom. 10:24 the device explodes. The lights flicker in Wood Street control room and, you know, we're literally 1/4 of a mile away and we’ve got the subsequent blast effect. And, as you know, the history tells us 500 tonnes of glass fell out of the sky at that day. The best news of all is Alpha 7 was just approaching in Leadenhall Street and didn't get affected by the blast. You know, my heart was pumping not only for what else happened. Another interesting story, is that there was a Moss Bros in Old Broad Street, New Broad Street, and when a constable went there, all the mannequins had fallen out the window. So we thought we had a street of bodies, yeah, but they were actually the mannequins from the Moss Bros shop. All these little pieces. And sadly, as we know, there was a news journalist who was trying to get a photograph of the device and he regrettably didn't adhere to the cordons we put in place, albeit they were only tapes across the road because this is a Saturday morning, you've got the probably on the biggest railway infrastructures below the surface, you know, limited number of police officers, you know, and literally only one fatality. And interestingly enough, and this is the bravery of the individuals, if you look at the injuries, a few people out of the Bank of Kuwait got a little bit cuts and bruises from the from the glass. You know, the people who came out. And then, but basically no one was really hurt apart from, sadly, the journalist who got killed. But the 76 who went to the basement all survived. They had a bit of heavy ringing in their ears and a bit of dust on their clothes, but they all survived. So, you know, if you look at decision making, but it's rotational decision making at the time, what had never been tested but been thought about and practised. And then, and of course sadly, the one person who didn't look after himself was the heroic security guard, who basically stood in the foyer of HSBC, directing everybody to the basement but didn't put himself there. Quite badly injured but, but he survived as well. So we end up with one sadness. 

So the learning and then, of course, out of that came a book, a booklet, which the fastest ever piece of publication I've seen, combination of Home Office, military, police and scientists. We pulled together something called “Bombs – Protecting People and Property”, which I think is now on its third edition but still stands good today in that sort of respect for the what was there, and what can still occur today. So that was the Bishopsgate bomb. 

As a consequence of that, we built the first armed patrols to protect London going forward and it was an operation that effectively was called then Operation Argos, which was a patrol. But it's an interesting thing when you look at this sort of stuff, you got to analyse what you do. So, together between myself and Tim, we used to sign what was then the “PACE Orders”, Police and Criminal Evidence Act Order, that we believed that the threat to London was still relevant and therefore justified us putting out armed patrols in that era. We're talking 1993-94. But interestingly, you know you've got Inspector rank, quite a senior rank, and so you allow those officers to determine where those patrols should go or not go. But we mapped them over a two-month period and if you look at the one square mile, yes, in the northeast you've got Smithfield Market and then you've got Bishopsgate area down to where effectively you are now, along to the law courts. And interestingly, when we plotted all the, because they had to return all of the PACE forms where they exercise, put the patrols in place, etcetera. And for some reason, they never went near that quarter of the City of London. And if you think about it, it's Smithfield Market, it's got transiting meat lorries in everyday, 20 foot, particularly at night time. So if one was to conceal a device, that was the place to get it in. But for some obscure reason, all the inspectors avoided that area, because they thought it would be better to do it somewhere else. So I think no matter, you know that there's a real management issue about giving freedom to qualified and experienced and industrious senior ranks. But, check what they do, because they may all be doing the same thing with good intention. So, that was the Bishopsgate bomb.

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

No, that's absolutely fascinating and thank you for sharing your own personal experience of that. The lessons learned are really, really interesting as well, and I think we'll come on to how those lessons have informed not only the nation’s or the country’s understanding of terrorism threat and the mitigation that we place against it, but also your own understanding of the threat and the lessons learned that you've taken with you now throughout your career in different roles. I was just wondering if we could quickly touch on, I mentioned at the start I was keen to gain an understanding of what terrorism felt like at that time for members of the general public. When these big devices were going off throughout the country, but primarily in London, was your role considered to be doing its job by the general public, do you think? Do you think the police were respected in their response and how they dealt with these devices?

Guest Expert: Don Randall MBE

Yeah, I guess if you look back to 93’, I guess the harmonisation between the security services, law enforcement, and the military perhaps wasn't quite what it is today, where it is exceedingly harmonious and exceedingly works very well whereas way back then there were still different beliefs and we had never experienced this before. You know, I appreciate that Northern Ireland, I experienced it, and you'll hear what is wrongly called “The Ring of Steel”, yes, but you know, we had to do something. And a couple of stories which I think are sufficiently down the line, we talk about the Chairman of Policy and Resources for the corporation at the time was a lovely man called Michael Cassidy, who's still around today. And we had a meeting and he said “we got to do two things, Don”. And I said, “what are they, Michael?”. He said, “I've got to make this city continue to work because if you go back to 1993 economically, we still had a position where Frankfurt wanted to be the centre of financial excellence for Europe and we, the City of London, were the financial centre. And I remember Michael saying, he said “I need to make the city al fresco”. Yeah. And if you now look at the city, you look at everything on ground floor is shops, restaurants, cafes, bars, yeah. So that actually was Michael Cassidy's initiative way back in 1994. And I said, “what have I got to do?”. He said, “you gotta make this city safe”, and that's why we built the Ring of Steel or the Ring of Plastic as it was originally called, yes. But basically we did. And so, I mean it wasn't me alone, you know the force itself all pulled together. The Commissioner, I mean, Kelly, you know, Hugh Moore, the commander, the chief superintendents. We reorganised, we stripped the fraud squad down by a third in number and they went out on police patrols. So, I think we did do an effective job. 

And sadly, until we had the June 17, you know, the subterranean bombs, I think the closest one was at Aldgate, the city has never suffered another device since then, so the effectiveness of that, and it's really progressed. So the concept of the Ring of Steel was hatched from that. The different patrolling methodologies, the different learnings, the bombs protecting people, the harmonisation of all the agencies working towards it, to make people feel safe in our city and London. And, I think prior to that, we were reaching a crescendo where people were feeling unsafe. And we learned from Belfast. I remember Sir Ronnie Flanagan, good friend of mine. I went out to Belfast and we looked at what Belfast were doing. I mean, in a far more robust way. But the Ring of Steel was formulated on that sort of basis. So, I think we did and I think we have, but of course you now have a shift in the terrorist profile and the terrorist methodology and the terrorist goals and aims.

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Exactly. And we'll come on to that a bit later on if we can, going back to you more personally and the lessons you've learned throughout your career, I guess could we now maybe move on to a bit later on in your career to explore your roles at both JP Morgan and the Bank of England? So, for our audience's sake, maybe just give a brief understanding of what that role looked like, but also how mitigating terrorism threat was a direct and important part of both of those roles.

Guest Expert: Don Randall MBE

Yeah. I think part of my appointment at JP Morgan in 1995 was from a terrorist and fraud perceptive. I came with probably two or three skill sets. Cyber wasn't particularly on the horizon at that time. We can talk about that when I get to the Bank of England. So, it was looking at that. And also, animal extremism was around. And I can remember, so we still had the continuing Irish threat, yes, and of course, during that 14 years, 1995 through to 2008, you know we had the extremist thing. We innocently inherited a bunch of hunting and life sciences shares. And you know, at that time and the people have been convicted for it, they were quite a vicious group of people and they practised every element of the animal rights activities on JP Morgan Chase, because we merged in 2002. 

So when we look around the world, of course we then, of course, we have 9/11. And 9/11 was a turning point, as everybody will tell you in the history of terrorist activity. And, I was actually in Tel Aviv that afternoon, and was just about to board my plane from Tel Aviv back to London when the first plane hit the Twin Towers. And as we got on the plane, just getting on, the second plane hit the Twin Towers. And we were the last aircraft to leave Tel Aviv, and of course, at that point no one knew what was going to happen anywhere else, you know. So, that was the sea change and that led into part of my, our pro-bono activities, because JP Morgan paid a significant part. We were lucky on 9/11. We just lost one person and that person died of a heart attack. But our fellow financial institutions as we know, the tragedy that occurred. We actually had, JP Morgan, we had about 40 Japanese students in New York at that time who were part of the JP Morgan training plan. So, I think what we saw over that period of time was then you you're moving from, you know, traditional Irish type of terrorist activity into a more religious activity of Islamist terrorism. You know, where basically they didn't mind dying for their cause. So we moved into a different era of activity which needed different policing methodologies, and as the world knows, 9/11 changed the world when it came to terrorist activity.

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Absolutely. And that was then impacted your role at JP Morgan. Did you have personal experience of 7/7 within London?

Guest Expert: Don Randall MBE

Yeah, 7/7. On 7/7, I just landed in Frankfurt for a meeting. And you may or may not know, I chair various preventative organisations and created a few as well, and I was the chairman of the Crime Prevention Association and my colleague, just as we got off the plane, said “I think we've had a terrorist attack in London”. And so we basically turned around. James Hart was the Commissioner at the time. And I think this is the piece that people probably don't realise. I think the City of London has always had brilliant commissioners through difficult times. James as a Commissioner and the Commander Frank Huntsman at the time called me and said, “can you can you meet the Commissioner this late afternoon, this evening”. And I was on a plane, I’d gotten a reverse plane back from Frankfurt and I said, “yeah, sure, as long as I can get there”. And of course, London was in a mess. It was gridlocked. Anyway, James and I met, and this is the thinking that I think a lot of people don't realise. James said, “what do we need to do to reestablish the stability of the business community in London?”. And we talked through a series of issues. One of which, we created a group called the Sister Banks, which was a collection of 20 of us banks who all had interconnectivity and shared, you know, relevant information on appropriate times. And I said, well, we need to get a Sister Banks meeting together tomorrow, and I'm quite happy to host that in 10 Aldermanbury, which was a JP Morgan premises. I said, “also, James, I think you should be at Liverpool Street Station tomorrow morning to reassure people getting off the public transport that you know, we need to do this. So yeah, so that that was what occurred there. 

And you know, I think when we say June 17, it was the first subterranean effects. Sorry, I've got my dates corrected there. James was dealing with the Bishopsgate bomb because that was the anniversary of the St. Mary Axe bomb. And it was Mike Bowron, was the Commissioner at the time of June 17. But you know, and then there was June 21, which was the device on the bus in East London that was diffused before action. So yeah, a lot of harmonisation, a lot of working together. 

One of the things we did do at that time, which may or may not be known, is that we created Project Griffin by then. Project Griffin, we conceived in 2003, after 9/11. And basically, we supplemented British Policing by putting out the private security guards in high visibility vests voluntarily on their external patrols. Not to intervene, but just to create this assurance of security because, you know, the average person can't always detect the difference between a uniformed police officer, a special constable, a volunteer, or a security guard. And you know, it was exhausting London's policing at that time, and so when the police forces had to reduce their overt police, we kept the private security guards out on the streets voluntarily, so, to the general member of the public, they didn't see that reduction in core policing, they didn't see a reduction in the security. And that's why, I think Project Griffin has been quoted four times in Hansard as the best example of public private partnership. 

And for those listening, and know SHIELD in New York; SHIELD is actually a derivation of Project Griffin introduced a few years back by former Commissioner Ray Kelly and myself. We talked about it, and I was in New York, and we talked about the concept of Project Griffin. And I always remember Ray saying to me, “I love it. I'm going to do it. But I'm going to say I invented it”, you know. And he said also, “I'm going to change the name”. And I said, “Ray, as long as you do it, because, I think it's a great idea”. And he said, “but you weren't here”. And I go, “that's OK. I'm not glory seeking here”. And of course Griffin was in Australia, in India, in Singapore, in South Africa, in America, and in Canada. And so as I'm leaving his office, he said “there's a pair of commissioners, cufflinks”. And I said, “but you said I'm not here”, jokingly. Yes. And he goes, “you were here on another occasion”. So, SHIELD is a derivation of Project Griffin way back then.

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Sure, and I think I was reading earlier a few examples of Griffin’s impact within the UK itself. So, following the 7/7 attacks, staff trained within that wider programme and that partnership were directly involved with reassuring the public that the terrorist threat existed, but it was also being mitigated. And I think I also read that in 2007, trained security staff were involved with the evacuation of the Tiger Tiger nightclub plot, which again that training and understanding came from Griffin itself.

Guest Expert: Don Randall MBE

And they were highly commended. Peter Clarke was the Assistant Commissioner in the Met, did some marvellous things when Peter was AC as the Head of Counter Terrorism, he introduced the ROCU’s across the country, you know. And yeah, they did, they were commended because the two security guards at Tiger Tiger that night actually, because if you may or may not remember, there was a Mercedes-Benz motor car, there was sort of vapour coming out of the back and although they didn't deal with the vehicle, they dealt with the people and they evacuated them, internally evacuated them or evacuated them away. So their Griffin training actually probably saved, well the advice didn't explode, but had it exploded, they would have saved many, many, many lives through Project Griffin.

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Absolutely, that’s fantastic. We'll come on to private public partnerships in a bit more depth a bit later on if that's ok, but I'd like to just quickly go back to perhaps explaining your role at the Bank of England and the benefits that, I mean we've touched on some, but the benefits that your role at JP Morgan and then Bank of England achieved.

Guest Expert: Don Randall MBE

Yeah, again, when I… Policemen have a macabre sense of humour. So I'm not mocking the very seriousness of it. But I think when I was leaving JP Morgan, I think someone in jest said to me, you know, “what value did you bring in 14 years”, you know. And, it's an easy question, and you would know, and your colleague Matt would know, that it's very difficult to identify profit in prevention. And I said, well, I was there 14 years, 1995 to 2008, terrorism across the world, yeah. Way back then, if you evacuate a trading floor, it's between three and five million dollars’ worth of lost revenue for an hour. And I said so, if we look at that, and it was at a time, some of your listeners will recall, that we had the biochemical risk, remember biochemical risk? And the old Stock Exchange? Well, JP Morgan were in the Old Angel Court, which was directly behind the old Stock Exchange and they were hosing people down outside the Stock Exchange, you know. And we didn't evacuate. And if I had to put a price on it, I would just say, and some of your preventative colleagues may like this, to say during that 14 years we never evacuated a building, with all the terrorist activity across the world, during my period of engagement. So, if you then look at the instances and times that by the hour or two hour loss on the monetary value, it’s pretty huge. 

So, the Bank of England was slightly different because they wanted to go through a period of change. They'd actually asked me to go there three years before and I just didn't think time was right for me. And actually, I didn't think the time was right for them, but for a variety of reasons, come 2008, they wanted change, they wanted the assurance of security - physical security, technical security, marauding terrorist security. And Mervyn King was the Governor when I first joined, and then Mark joined in 13’. So the initial part, the initial couple of years, were redefining. We created an intelligence unit, we started to build a small cyber intelligence unit as well, and then we dealt with the terrorist activity. And of course, I think it was 2009, when there was that massive demonstration around the Bank of England, the name of which I can't remember and never can, but it's got horse in it somewhere. And you know, we were surrounded. I always remember the Governor said to me, you know, “I want to be in the Bank, I'm not going to allow these the demonstrations, for whatever purpose, to disrupt, I'm going to set an example, OK?”. And he said, “and also, my main concern is that those people who come into the bank, they can pick their children up from school at four o’clock in the afternoon if they need to.”

So, there was one learning, and if I don't come back to this, Ollie, please remind me.

And Mervyn, said “I'm giving a presentation at either the House of Lords or House of Commons. I'm due one of those on the morning of that demonstration. Can I go?”. And I said, “Mervyn, you can go, but I can't guarantee to get you back”. He said, “my question was, can I go?”. And I said, “well, simply no. If you want to be in the Bank, you can't go”. He said, “it's alright, I won't go”. 

The interesting thing about the people, so we decided that pretty much we could let the people, our employees, exit from the rear of the building and that would be relatively safe because the primary demonstration was going to be the bank junction, they might creep up mid-Princess Street. And at that time, the NatWest Bank was next to us in Saint Bartholomew’s lane, and the one thing we didn't plan for, I didn't plan for, was plan for the demonstration, plan criminal damage, but didn't plan that the demonstrators would set fire to that building, right? Thankfully, City of London Police, supported by the others, got the demonstrators out, extinguished the fire before it could have done anything. But, we didn't plan for a fire. Yes, because it was early days again, we're talking, I forget what year it was, 2009. 

And then when Mark came along. 2013, I think Mark Carney went to the Bank. And he saw cyber as a big issue. I think I was 63 then. Yes, I was 63 and intended to leave at 65 for Chapter 4. And I think he asked me, but he told me via Charlotte Holt to create a cyber division, from zero, right, in two years and also create something which is called CBEST. CBEST is an acronym without any meaning, but basically it was a threat led penetration testing on the 24 supervised banks at that time. And so, we've got to create a cyber division, and we've got to also do CBEST which was a Treasury and central Government requirement. And we did it. And just for factual, 27 people, budget of 3.2 million, fully manned, fully staffed, fully equipped. And we did that in two years. 

And, of course, alongside that you've got the everyday issues of demonstrations focused on the bank, all the relevant personnel issues you get in any organisation of two and half thousand people, we also had the merger of what used to be the FSA which became part of the Prudential Regulatory Authority, and the current governor became the head of that, Andrew Bailey. And you had all the other issues, counterfeit currency, threats on the bank, and various other issues. So, actually, the Bank of England is an exciting institution to work for because you've got all the various dimensions. You know people, people think the Bank of England, what are we going to do? Director of Security at the Bank of England? You know. If you embrace it all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable time.

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Absolutely. That sounds. Yeah, very, very interesting. And especially your relationship with Mervyn King. He seems like he was quite the personality. I guess within that role, was that your first sort of experience of directly managing a high profile individual, of which there are many, and terrorist actors, then and now within the UK, would find individuals like that highly attractive targets?

Guest Expert: Don Randall MBE

Yeah, I think the bank is attractive and will always be an iconic target. It has to be. And again I use the word “harmonisation”, but the working relationship between all the various departments, the HR, the compliance, the legal, the facilities management, we had weekly meetings, we discussed everything together. So it's a very joined up process. Mervyn was, I liked Mervyn. I liked all the governors. You know a good relationship with Andrew when he was chief cashier and PRA, and Mark when he was Governor. Mervyn was, if I say old school but, you know, there is a degree of bureaucracy in every government-type institution. Mervyn was very understanding, very practical. I enjoyed it when I first met him, I think it was, day two, day one, day two. He just shook my hand and said, “we are so pleased you're here, Don”. Yeah? Which is great. Great embrace. Yeah. And we worked quite well together. The objective being that really, and Mark, Mark actually said something once to me, when we met, I think when Mark was on his second day here, just him and I, and he goes, “I'll do everything you ask me to do. But if I ask you why and you can't answer it, then we have an issue”. And that's pretty good strategic top of the house management, you know, in other words, don't ask me to do something you can't justify, which I think is a good maxim for anyone in security, irrespective of what the problems are. 

And so if you go back to what I talked about at JP Morgan, and also I think what was quite interesting, Ollie, was that having worked for British policing, having worked for JP Morgan, and then going back into the Bank of England with the quasi-government type relationship, you know, so you've got the forward thinking of someone like JP Morgan, you know, basically his attitude is, and I use this story sometimes that, you know, you got a set of lawyers who want to tell you why you can't do something. And you have a set of lawyers to tell you why you can do something. And JP Morgan, was that. Don't tell me you can't, tell me what I need to do to achieve it. And so you got that balance. So you could bring that pure private sector commercial responsibility in the world of security, into a more establishment-type of organisation or institutions. So, fine balance. I mean, you still have to be respectful. Understand. Play the players as I say, but yeah. I've had an amazing career, I've enjoyed every second of it.

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Sounds like it. Absolutely. You spoke there about harmonisation of multiple individuals, but also assets to a team within these massive organisations and then on to the kind of the quasi-government space in which JP Morgan and the Bank of England were sitting, I guess now if we move to, as we've termed it now, Chapter 4 and explore, we've already touched on Project Griffin, but perhaps your role within the UK, discussing public private partnership, perhaps the benefits that you've reaped from entering that conversation and leading within these partnerships, but also, why you still believe they're so important today?

Guest Expert: Don Randall MBE

Yeah, that's a very interesting question, Ollie. I think there's two or three things there, right? One is that, you know, and I'm happy to take the challenge: British policing cannot survive without public private partnerships. Whether it's the cooperation of the public, yeah, but I remember quoting once, I think at that time was 120,000 police officers in the country and 350,000 private security guards. So, why wouldn't you maximise on those 350,000 pairs of eyes and pairs of ears and brains? It's simple, simple mathematics, yeah? How you manage that is quite interesting, how you partner on that. And also, for those who move into Chapter 4, advisory roles, you've got to be current. You can't be ultra current. You can't know everything that serving officers know because there's certain stuff that you just can't know. But you should be as current as you possibly can, so keeping involved in keeping current, keeping a fair, you know, you can't be out of step with the reality of what's occurring. Albeit, you can't know the most intricate details. 

Also, there's a trust, and if we look to your 2nd point. We created what is, the acronym is CSSC, which is Cross Sector Safety and Security Communications, in October, November 2011. Janet Williams was the Deputy Assistant Commissioner in charge of counterterrorism for the Olympics and, for your listeners, you’ll remember around October, November, there was effectively massive disturbances across the country. And perhaps the communications weren't quite what they should have been. And Janet asked us if we could, myself and Sir David Vanness, if we could recreate an extended Project Griffin, the principle of Griffin into a bigger family of communication in anticipation of the Olympics in the summer of the following year. And that's where CSSC was hatched. CSSC, when we went into the Olympics, we had 24 members. We had the core, you know we had hotels, we had finance, we had transportation. We had 24 core members. We, CSSC now, has in excess of 4000 industry-sector leads. The strap line has never changed and the originators of CSSC were Janet, Sir David Veness, myself, and sadly he passed away last year, James Brokenshire MP; who was a great supporter, great, great supporter, and to my mind, an excellent individual. And the strap line was, and the only bit that has changed, in those times it was “fast time”, we now call it “timely, accurate and authoritative”. They are the three strap lines. So we've now got 4000 industry-sector leads across the country. We've followed the ROCU’s, Peter Clark's ROCU’s. We've got 9 regional chairman across the United Kingdom. We can confidently distribute a message within 20 minutes, effectively, to 15 million recipients in this country for preventative, informative, action. That's what CSSC can do. We can do it by region. We can do it nationally. We can do it by particular type; hotel industry or whatever. And it was very effective. And the other piece of it is that, should we get a major incident, whether it be terrorism or something else, we also have the facility to have a telephone bridge call whereby a senior police officer can come and talk to probably the top 100 security professionals, but on a two-way platform, whereby the senior police officer, and Lucy Dorsey, now chief of BTP, she did it when she was DACTSO, Chris Allison's done it, Janet's done it, Mark Rowley did it, Neil Basu did it. But they want to know what the business wants to know. Almost back to James Hart, way back then, saying “what do I need to do to make the business and the population feel more comfortable, more safe?”. So that's CSSC. So that's the second. 

And the latter one I got involved in, again, at Lucy’s initial request was the Prevention of Violence Against Women and Girls domestic abuse. And what we're doing, we've created a consortium, I think there's about 37, but I've got it down to an executive of about 11. And we're piloting this during the current Lord Mayor's mayoral term of office, which is November to November and fortuitously, the Lady Mayoress Elizabeth Minnelli has agreed to be our patron. Ian Dyson, former Commissioner of the City, is one of our ambassadors and a lady called Sarah Cork, security industry professional and highly respected individual, they're our other ambassador. We've got effectively, I came out of a meeting this morning, we’ve got 15 initiatives. We've looked around the whole country, looked at the various initiatives, for example, we've reintroduced taxi marshalling at Liverpool Street Station, so our partners are City Police, Met Police, British Transport Police, Corporation of London, Safer Business Networks, the City of London BIDS, building improvement districts. So what we've done, we've pulled all those together in a consortium to actually tackle violence against women and girls and enhance some of the initiatives already occurring. “Ask for Angela”, the creation of a thing called Safe Havens. We have a Safe Havens app. And various others. You know, I’m involved with Crime Stoppers, was at a lunch with Elizabeth at the Mansion House and the Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally, she's agreed that we can explore the use of churches as Safe Havens. These are rolling, in other words, to make women feel safe in the city. And then the objective, Ollie, again with Project Griffin, again with CSSC, we pilot it in the city, the City of London is amazing for piloting stuff. It's small enough, but big enough, and influential enough that you can then lift that pilot up and at the end of the year you can go to Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle, Hull. And say, “look, here's an idea”. Yeah. “These bits work”. “These need a bit of refinement”. “Maybe you'd want to implement it”. So, there's a lot of, you know that’s how, you've effectively got 3 core partnerships. You've got Griffin, which was international. I think in Australia it was called Sharp Eye, in India it was called Sahyog, in Singapore it's called Guardian, South Africa it was called Griffin, and I told you in New York, it's called SHIELD. And then you've got CSSC, the concept of, and I think we've actually sent since its creation, it’s a registered charity, we've sent in excess of two and half thousand messages. We send about 20 informative messages, preventative messages, per month to that population.

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

That's absolutely incredible. You must be a very, very busy man. And I think, just as you were mentioning there, the international and national reach of each of those programmes is just a testament to the benefits that come from, as you say, public private partnership. I was very interested in your mention there of staying as current as you possibly can and how through a partnership with as many interested parties as possible, that is, the ability to stay current is greatly increased. We at Pool Re are, and my role especially, constantly looking at the UK terrorism threat. 

We tend to at the end of these episodes, ask our guests, their thoughts on the current UK terrorism threat landscape and how it's changed during your career and your experience, but then also, perhaps get your predictions of how you envisage the UK terrorism threat changing within the next 5 to 10 years?

Guest Expert: Don Randall MBE

Yeah. Ok, well I think we already said if we go back, I mean terrorism, there is an academic argument that terrorism will always exist. We don't need to debate that whether I agree with it or not. I don't believe in the innocent killing of members of the population. But that's a different discussion point. I think you saw the real change on 9/11, I think you've seen the, you know, the classic Irish terrorism that we experienced, then we have the Islamist terrorism. You then have the, you know, the collective, and then you have the individual and looking at the future, I think individual acts of terrorism will continue, primarily because it's like planning a bank robbery. You do it on your own, there's less like of leakage. You do it in a group, there's more like of leakage. So, you know, I think the simple, you know, bin Laden type of action, the go do your own thing. This is the ideology, there's a methodology, do your own thing. When you want to do it, how you want to do it.  And we've seen that and I think it's public knowledge that there has been in excess of 147 disrupted activities in the last 12 months. So individual. 

I think what's going to happen, and I was talking to a very good friend of mine about a year ago, Nick Kaldas, former assistant commissioner of NSW, head of counterterrorism for Australia for several years, also investigated the Harari terrorist activity in Beirut, and a highly respected person in this world of terrorist activity. And he said, his view and this must have been, four or five years ago, was environmental issues will be the formation of terrorist activity as opposed to religious. Yeah? And that's quite interesting. And I think we're seeing that evolve, Ollie. I think extremism, you know, if you if you follow that belief that you and I have a discussion and then we have an argument. Yeah? Then we have a fight. Yes? And then we have a little battle, and then we have a war, and then terrorism comes in there. So you know what one has to be. And I'm not following any political line here. But I just believe that the environmental extremist-type issues could manifest themselves into more aggressive activity than what we've seen at this moment in time. That's where I see it going. 

And then of course, we have to look at the world stage. We have to look at, you know, Islamist terrorism has not gone away. Traditional terrorism is not going away and everybody's maximising the moment of weakness. So, you know, if we look at the where the world's attention is at this moment in time, does that make vulnerability elsewhere? Can we as a nation, can we as law enforcement agencies, public private partnership, how do we deal with that? So I personally, and I'm not an academic or a scientist, I think we'll see a continuation of individual acts of terrorism, but I think the motivation for the terrorism will differ and move more towards environmental extremist, into a more violent position than we've experienced to date.

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Sure, that's fascinating. And we've actually previously had Professor Andrew Silke on the podcast who discussed how climate change going forward, he believes, will be a direct driver of terrorism threat globally. But, of course in the UK as well. That's a great way, I think, to finish and Don thank you so much on behalf of Pool Re and myself for coming and having a chat today, I think that is absolutely fascinating and our audience are really going to gain a lot from that. So thank you very much.

Guest Expert: Don Randall MBE

No, it’s my pleasure and thank you to you and Matt for inviting me, and Pool Re, so, anything I could ever do.

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Thanks very much, Don. 

Guest Expert: Don Randall MBE

Ok. 

Threat Analyst: Oliver Hair

Thank you for listening to the latest episode of Totally Terrorism, a Pool Re podcast. We hope that you have found this discussion useful for supporting or building your knowledge and understanding of terrorism threat. We hope that you'll join us next month for another conversation between a new guest expert and one of the Pool Re terrorism threat analysts.

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