The Circuit

“Bob Shepherd left the SAS and joined the private security industry before Iraq kicked off. At that point, the private security industry was very much a nod-and-a-wink game. It was really just for the elite special forces. If you were a quality SAS person at the end of your time in the forces you would join a private members’ club near Harrods. In those days, the group was called ‘the Circuit.’ You knew all the people involved and there weren’t that many jobs about. You’d get people like a Saudi prince coming into town and he would have his own security people, but he might have brought his daughter with him so he’d need more people to look after her. Bob Shepherd quickly specialised in looking after journalists. He worked with CNN so most of his stories are about specific events and moments in history. For example, he was there when CNN went into Yasser Arafat’s compound in the Gaza Strip. Bob Shepherd is a smart bloke who is very aware of how the security industry is changing and he starts to unpick that as he is going along. You get this sense of how this small group of specialised people suddenly found that the demand for their type of work had escalated. He talks about how amateurs were starting to get into this line of work, like a nightclub bouncer from the UK who turned up in Iraq, picked up an AK47 and got himself some private security work.” Read more...

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Stephen Armstrong, Journalist