VIP Security

Major events are a natural target for attention seekers and trouble-makers, and security is now integral to the planning of these occasions

At the recent International Sports Security Summit in London organiser Nigel Rushman said security had become the single most important element of event management. He said: “At a time when the commercial and social role of sport is evolving and becoming increasingly important, it has to be understood that there would be no live sports events without effective security.”

Armed police and a security dog on guard
at the G8 summit in Scotland

So what needs to be done to keep dignitaries, VIPs, participants and the public safe?

In 2005 the Group of Eight (G8) nations summit was held at Gleneagles hotel in Scotland. Over twenty heads of state and government – including Queen Elizabeth II and US president George Bush – visited Gleneagles during the summit week.

Tayside police chief constable John Vine was responsible for security. He told Host City: “As far as directly protecting the delegates at the G8, I decided to put a physical barrier around the site which was a fence, because the site didn’t have any natural defensive barriers.”

This outer cordon extended over five miles around Gleneagles. An additional mile-long inner cordon, built from Corus concrete and steel barriers, also protected delegates. “[The Corus barriers] are designed to deal with vehicle-borne devices – to prevent [vehicles] from entering or breaking their way through to where the delegates are having their meetings. Of course protecting that inner cordon were usually overtly armed officers,” says Vine. The Gleneagles staff were vetted, and also searched on a daily basis before being allowed into the venue.

Previous G8 summits, in Genoa, Italy, and Evian, France, had been marred by violent protests. “The second big issue for us at the G8 was the management of lawful protest,” Vine says.

“I saw it very much as my role to facilitate protest,” he says. “We had a lot of dialogue with protest groups,” says Vine. “And we kept the dialogue going right the way through the planning period right up to the final days. I think that stood us in good stead.”

Security guards at the Gleneagles hotel
during the G8 summit

He says: “We made it very clear that people who broke the law would be arrested and put before the criminal justice system.”

Between five and six thousand people took part in a protest near Gleneagles on the first day of the summit. It was largely peaceful, but 97 people were arrested during the day.

Vine says: “The G8 was about protecting a venue and keeping the venue safe for a relatively small number of people, albeit a very important group of people.

“Whereas at the Olympics the emphasis will be on making it an enjoyable sporting event for many thousands of people, I would imagine there would be greater emphasis on random stopping and searching, vetting, but you won’t be able to keep a particular venue sterile in the same way as at Gleneagles.” Risk consultancy Control Risks’ crisis and security consulting director Jonny Gray says running a secure Olympics covers many activities “from fraud management through to technical security, command and control, CCTV systems”.

His team have been involved in events including the Barcelona and Sydney Olympics. It is currently acting as security consultant to the London Olympics. Terrorism is a threat at every Games, Gray says, but the risk – or probability – of it happening is greater for some. It is a “significant risk” at the London Games, he says. “The planning for the counterterrorist effort for the London Games – which is still five years away – is going on now, and has been going on for some time,” Gray says.

“You’re looking at thinking about these things years in advance and primarily trying to design out opportunities for terrorists to attack the games.” He says: “It’s literally, in the design of the railway station at the Olympic Park, designing it in such a way that, for example, suicide bombers are not going to be able to attack it and attack groups of people.”

Gray says: “We are looking at the behaviours of suicide bombers based on the London bombings, events in the Moscow tube, and elsewhere, to see what lessons you can draw out on that and design into facilities to try and mitigate the risk of suicide bombing.”

Another element is protecting the royalty, athletes, sponsors and dignitaries that visit the games, says Gray. While some receive police or publicly provided protection, others – sponsors or company chief executives – may not be entitled to it. Gray says: “They would tend to look to their risk consultants to provide a solution. That’s often where Control Risks becomes involved.” He says: “Ours is a bespoke solution, for that particular person or group of people, driven by the threats and risks that they face.”

Control Risks protected a Microsoft founder member, whose guests included a former US president, at the Turin Winter Olympics. “We had 40 people on that – it was a very big operation,” Gray says.

“For the visiting chief executive of a fairly standard company we might just provide a coordinator to their visiting party. One person who makes sure that by phoning into our command and control centre we know what routes are open, which way to drive that day, so it’s quite low key.”

Issues facing VIPs at the Beijing games are likely to be logistical, linguistic and cultural. Control Risks’ Shanghai office head James Blakeney says: “[Visitors need to] have somebody who interfaces with the local community, whether it be hospitals, police, or just the people who are organising their vehicles – giving them advice on the ground, being able to understand broadcasts.”

They will need somebody to navigate the Chinese system if, for instance, somebody is involved in a traffic accident, he says. “What we’re actually putting in place is a command and control centre.” This will provide clients with daily information, be a point of contact, an emergency response line, and an advice line.

Blakeney says: "We will be monitoring everything that’s going on all the broadcasts, all the official broadcasts, the traffic reports for the official sites.” Control Risks will also liaise with police, governments, embassies, and security people in town, to make sure “we’ve got the best picture of what’s going on".