I've been threatened, what do I do?

I want you to have a brief discussion about what to do should you or someone you know received a threat. Before I continue with this, I kind of wanted to you know that very very new to the whole voice recording in I'm not very good at yet so there's going to be mistakes a long way and I apologise in advance for that. I’ve got a “bullet point” notepad that I'm reading from so this recording is very much off the cuff and I’m sure you’ll be able to tell as and when I'm going through it so just bear with me. We have a lot of clients who receive threats and the original company that we set up Was specifically for people who received threats so we're going back on time little bit in terms of the services we provide is still very relevant today and probably always will be. So threats can range from damage to property, reputational damage all the way to the causing of physical harm. As a security contractor we conduct what are commonly known as threat assessments quite regularly for private individuals who we work for on a regular or long term basis. This looks at all types of threats posed to an individual or a group of individuals such a family.

Going back a step, I want to look at the definition of the word threat which is, something that will cause harm to something or someone. The reason I mention this now is because when is because we carry out a threat assessment, we look at the risks associated with those threats which is entirely different. I won’t go into it too much but essentially what it means is a risk is the likelihood of something occurring where is threat is in the thing that might cause the harm or damage. When you’re look at the threat, you want to reduce or mitigate the risks associated with that threat. By that definition and in the interests of a threat assessment, a threat assessment would be inclusive of a number of things inclusive of things such as theft and as far fetched as adverse weather conditions. However, the scope of this blog is to look at the options that are available to you as a private individual, a family member a friend or your property.

Now, there is legal element here that you should be aware of or you may be interested in, however, what I will do is highlight very briefly the main offences someone may be committing by issuing a threat, but will leave the finer details of the law to the end of This podcast or blog as I am conscious of the fact that reading or listening to articles of parliamentary acts can be very boring, tedious and borderline confusing.

One of the few things you should firstly do if you received a threat is call the police. I'm going to work on the assumption that you've already done this. Okay? If you've received a threat and you believe yourself to be or you feel that you are in imminent danger, then please telephone or call the police immediately. Some of the things that police are going to do, initially will be asking you questions. The 999 operator will transfer you to the police and depending on the severity of how they perceived the threat they may send someone to you, they put you through to an officer who may take your statement over the phone. One of the things ... Well, a few things that they're going to ask are how the threat was issued. By that, they mean was it over the phone, was it done via email, posted on social media, or was it done verbally face-to-face? That kind of thing. If the threat was in relation to your reputation the police will not involve themselves. All right? You need to be aware of that. If someone's threatened to spread rumours about you, whether that be digitally, verbally, whatever it is illegal, because it's an attack on someone's reputation under the Defamation Act. But, it's a civil matter and it will not usually require police assistance. If it is that, then take that into consideration. The police will not be involved. If your reputation is under threat from someone, that is something else that we can potentially help with, but I'll go through the options later on. If the person's know to you they're gonna want to know that. They're gonna want to know the name, their address, how you know them, et cetera, et cetera. If they deem your safety to be in eminent danger, once again they will send a unit to you. However, for the most part you're going to be asked to make a statement, which they will follow up on so that statement can be made with the officers or officer face-to-face or over the phone. Basically, this leaves a huge gap. By that gap I mean, if you receive a threat and you know it to be real or credible you're gonna be left to feel very, very vulnerable. The police cannot protect every individual who receives a threat, as they simply don't have the resources to do so. Imagine you've received a threat from someone, the police say, "All right. We'll take a statement from you. Okay. You've given a statement, thank you very much. We'll look into it." No. You're gonna be sat there thinking, "Right. Now I'm in danger. What do I do?" You're at home, you're at the office, whatever. You're gonna be in a position where you just don't feel comfortable, and quite rightly so. The only way to bridge this huge gap is to engage, usually a private security firm who if they're competent enough will efficiently and effectively implement relevant, appropriate, proportionate counter measures that will deter or prevent the threats from occurring. All right? Police will involve themselves. They've taken a statement, but they're not providing you with immediate, adequate protection, because once again they do have the resources to do it, but they can't do it for everyone that receives a threat. Whilst they may perceive it to be real, there's a bit of a gap there and that void can be filled by engaging a private security firm. The other thing you need to be aware of is the awkward balance of what people desire to have in terms of security and their budget. In an ideal situation you would have a large security team who are capable of providing all of the counter measures that you require or should have. However, this is all dictated by the realistic availability of funds. In some cases money will not be an issue, but the harsh reality is that for most it is. The reason why both private individuals and families, as well as corporate clients choose to work with Vanquish specifically is because of our availability to investigate threats as well as implementing the relevant counter measures. Our first company name was Vanquish Security and Investigation Consultants, which was no mistake. It's our specialty. We basically set the business up, the security business was the first company that was incorporated and it was set up with the unique selling point in a very, very competitive environment to provide the ability to investigate threats that clients receive. Typically speaking, security companies will probably listen to a situation, provide body guards, or provide residential security teams, or security operatives. Whatever it is, but not really be able to deal with the threat other than preventing it from happening. Imagine you're at your residence, you've received a threat, that threat starts to become very, very realistic. The person, or people, organisation, whatever it is shows up to your house, and then you've got the security there to prevent them from entering the house or whatever it is. That, in my opinion is too late. That, in my opinion is a situation where the security effort hasn't been implemented properly. If someone or something ... The threat itself has managed to get that close to you, your family, your employees, or whatever it is that's not good. That is too late, in my opinion. What we do differently is investigate the threat and try to mitigate the risk remotely. With all of our operatives being trained by our very own training academy we have the unique ability to ensure that our team members are trained to the highest caliber with the most relevant skillsets that fits our clients needs.

Going back a step, our training academy is a course that I've written. It's a 21 day bodyguard training programme. In order for anyone to attend a course they need to apply. It's an application process. I think, to my knowledge we are the only company in the world that do that. As opposed to you see the bodyguard course, you want to join, you basically pay a deposit and join. That's not how it works. You apply, you go for a process, you're interviewed over the phone or face to face, and then we'll consider your application before being able to join the course. That's how everyone of our operatives comes to working for Vanquish. The training course itself is a 21 day assessment period. Each day they're on the course they're being assessed by the instructor.

If the police have not provided you with adequate protection, you feel vulnerable, and if you have the budget available I strongly recommend implementing a security team immediately. The team leader, along with advisors who will probably be office based will work with you to ensure that the relevant and proportionate counter measures are implemented in order to protect you, your family, and possibly your business interests. However, if you're someone who has received a threat that you believe to be credible and you feel vulnerable and you're not sure what budget you have available or you're not sure that your budget will stretch to provide you with the relevant protection, then what you can do is contact a security consultant who will work with you, listen to the situation, and provide you with the details of what is not only appropriate, and proportionate, and relevant, but also affordable. Which, will be obviously dictated by your budget. At Vanquish we have a range of consultants available across the globe. You can arrange a consultation or find more information by going to www.Vanquish-Security.com/securityadvisor . Which, is all one word. Security advisor being all one word. Consultations are charged at ... At the time of recording this, £150 per hour. Which, is typically a suitable timeframe for the consultant to listen, understand, assess, and advise you of the best options that are available to you and will work within your budget. If you want to receive a consultation with myself, the fees are slightly hire. We can discuss that. If you want to get in contact with me directly, then please feel free to go to my website, which is http://www.MichaelChandler.online Or, you can email me directly. My email address is mc@thevanquishgroup.co.uk.

Sorry. There's a lot of websites we have there. We've got the investigation company which has a website, we've got the security business has a website, I have a website, and of course the group company has a website. Because I work directly for the Vanquish group as the chief operating officer and chief security consultant I have my email address through the vanquish group. It might seem a bit confusing, it's just four business all rolled into one as such. All right. Just want to go back to the boring legal bit. It's an offence under section five of the Public Order Act 1986 ... This is obviously UK legislation. You would need to revise legislation in your specific region, country, state that relates to threatening behaviour but, in the UK under section five of the Public Order Act 1986, section five makes it an offence to you as a threatening, abusive, or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour. Or, to display any writing, sign, or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive, or insulting within the hearing our sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm, or distress thereby. The offence does not depend on harassment, alarm, or distress actually having been caused in the particular case. It is an offence ... Sorry. It is a defence for a person accused of this offence if he or she can prove that he had no reason to believe that there was any person within or hearing or sight who is likely to be caused harassment along with distress. Or, that he or she was inside a dwelling and had no reason to believe that the words, behaviour, writing, signs, or other visible representation would be heard or seen by a person outside that or any other dwelling. Or, that his conduct was reasonable.

Basically, what that's saying is it is an offence to use threatening, abuse, or insulting words or behaviour to someone causing them alarm, harassment, or distress. However, the accused can defend themselves if they believe that no one could have heard it, what they said. No one could've seen what they wrote or displayed, or if they were in their own home basically. Obviously, they can defend themselves if they believe that their conduct was reasonable. A person ... Moving on. Is guilty of an offence under section five only if he or she intends their words or behaviour to be or is aware that it may be threatening, abusive, or insulting, or if he intends for his or her baby to be or is aware that it may be disorderly. The police can arrest a person without a warrant if he or she fails to heed a warning to stop the conduct in question. The maximum penalty is a thousand pound fine. The section five is capable of being charged as a racially or religiously aggravated offence if the offended demonstrates hostility based on the victims membership of a racial or religious group around the time of the offence. Or, it is wholly or partly motivated by the hostility towards members of such a group. So, yes. Threatening behaviour under section five of the Public Order Act relates to insulting words or behaviour. In terms of threatening behaviour, someone can be arrested for threatening someone if the person believes themselves to be in immediate danger. That meaning, if the person ... This is my understanding of the law when I was taught this from my time in the military police. If the person can be in immediate danger, then it is actually threatening behaviour. By that definition, what I mean is if I am standing in front of someone and I threaten them with a punch in the face, then that is threatening behaviour.

However, if it's not realistic, if it's not likely to happen ... For example, I threaten to punch someone in the face whilst I'm on the phone to them, then that isn't threatening behaviour. That's my understanding of it. Now, what I'm going to do in the show notes or the bottom of the blog post, which is going to be a transcript of this recording. I will post a few links. One of them will be to a PDF, which I've just read from which is from the House of Commons library. As well as, a link to the entire Public Order Act from Legislation.gov.uk. You can, if you're as boring as I am and interested in legislation as I am, then you can read it yourself and look into what constitutes threatening behaviour. But, this is borderline irrelevant, because the fact of the matter is if you have received a threat you want to do something about it. If you believe it to be credible, then you need to contact the police. Once the police have done their bit, if you still feel vulnerable, then you should contact a security consultant who will be able to, as I say listen to your situation, assess what the best counter measures are moving forward within your budget. Like I say, we can help with that. I can help with that personally. I will refer you initially to the Vanquish website, which is http://www.Vanquish-Security.com/securityadvisor. That's all one word. Alternatively, if you want to work with me directly you can do so. Please send me an email, which will be mc@thevanquishgroup.co.uk.

My fees are slightly higher than Vanquish fees. Vanquish security consultants charge £150 an hour, myself directly I do charge more. If you want to have a discussion about what those fees are, then please once again feel free to contact me via email. I will return your call with initial discussion just to see if it's something I can help with. That will cost nothing.

Resources:

file:///Users/info/Downloads/SN05760.pdf

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/section/4A

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