Key Reflections
* The 7/7 London Bombings reshaped UK counter-terrorism policing, transforming the national security apparatus to respond to the shifting threat landscape facing the country.
* The response to the series of terrorist attacks in the UK during 2017 was underpinned by years of preparation, which enabled the police to respond effectively and keep pace with the tempo of attacks as they were unfolding.
* Effective overseas terrorism investigations rely heavily on cooperation and negotiation with foreign authorities, particularly where UK police have no legal powers to seize evidence.
* The core values behind counter-terrorism work, which remain consistent and help prioritise decision-making across all cases, are to achieve justice for victims and their families, and to keep the public safe.
* Increasing hostile state activity in the UK, embodied by the Salisbury case, fundamentally reshaped how counter-terrorism policing approaches threats from foreign nations. Such a unique dynamic necessitated the establishment of hostile state threats as a distinct mission alongside counter-terrorism.
* Diversity in counter-terrorism leadership is essential. Different backgrounds and skills are key to having a more holistic picture and approach which in turn leads to more effective policing.
Transcript:
SG: Dr. Sajjan Gohel
DM: Commander Dominic Murphy
SG: Welcome to the NATO DEEP Dive podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Sajjan Gohel, and in this episode, I speak with Commander Dominic Murphy, who leads the Metropolitan Police’s Counter Terrorism Command in the United Kingdom
As the head of the Counter Terrorism Command, also known as SO15, Commander Murphy’s national security responsibilities include leading teams of officers and staff to deliver on domestic and international terrorism, as well as counter state threats and war crimes investigations.
Commander Dominic Murphy, warm welcome to NATO Deep Dive.
DM: Thank you and thanks very much for the chance to chat with you.
SG: It’s great to have you on this podcast.
There’s a lot to cover in this and I want to sort of start with early motivations and formative experiences.
So, when you look back at your early days in policing, what originally drew you towards national security, such as counter-terrorism, rather than, say, traditional policing pathways? Could you recall that moment or incident that made you feel that this is the domain where I want to be?
DM: Thank you for the question. Absolutely, I can remember the very moment, in fact, in which that happened. I’ve got 32 years in the police now, Sajjan, so I look back on it with a great deal of delight because that was almost 24 years ago that I made that decision in my career and I’ve had the privilege then of serving the last 22 in counter-terrorism and just doing that work at different ranks and in different levels.
So, the truth of it is, though I was an informant handler and I was managing covert human intelligence sources, so informants in Hertfordshire Constabulary, and I was fascinated by the way the intelligence system worked in policing and was getting into that. I bought my first house, Sajjan, and I was sanding the floors of that house with a television on in the background and I saw 9/11 unfolding live on television. I had been doing some work on the periphery of national security work as an informant handler and I think very shortly after watching this event unfold, reading some of the real-time footage coming from New York, I was almost immediately convinced that this was the career pathway I wanted to get into, and went back to work and did my best to try and hunt out opportunities in what used to be called Special Branch at that time, which was the sort of police, national security, and counter-terrorism intelligence section. And I was lucky enough then in 2003, late 2002, to join Special Branch and that was my first introduction to a full-time role in counter-terrorism.
SG: That’s really interesting because for me myself, 9/11 was also a very impactful, sizable moment. I was watching the TV when the second plane hit the South Tower, and it certainly got my interest as to why people would do this and understanding the ideology of it.
Of course, speaking of al-Qaeda, you’ve talked previously about your deployment during the London 7/7 attacks on July 7, 2005, in which 52 people were killed by al-Qaeda. What do you remember about being told that you were responding to this mass casualty incident for the first time, one of the biggest terrorist attacks the UK had seen? And what struck you most about the operational situation and what lessons have stayed with you throughout your career from that?
DM: Yes, thanks Sajjan. I was sitting in my office in Hertfordshire, and as we’re sitting there, I’m watching the news unfold. And about 18 months before, I had been trained by the Anti-Terrorist Branch, SO13, who at the time had national lead for terrorist investigations from the Metropolitan Police. And I was lucky enough to have been trained by them as a bomb scene examiner and a bomb scene manager. So, if ever there was a major terrorist attack, they would then call in people from all over the country to come and do that work.
And so that morning, having been trained, having spent a few weeks down here doing anything I could to help SO13. Sometimes I would just come down when they had a major inquiry, and I might just do data entry, or, at that time Sajjan, we didn’t have scanners, this was all about photocopying and other things. I’d do anything I could to be involved. Because I genuinely felt that whatever you were doing, you were adding contribution to the effort.
But that morning on 7/7, watching it unfold on television, I was ringing the Forensic Management Team, who are the people within counter-terrorism who lead our response to bomb scenes. And I just was listening to what was happening on the phone in the office. And I did that thing that police officers really shouldn’t do, certainly not in the UK: I forgot to ask my chief constable for permission to deploy. I jumped in the first car I could find, with every bit of kit that I could find, and drove straight to London. And I arrived at the Forensic Management Team. I arrived at a really odd time for the Met and for the anti-terrorist branch, because this was sort of late morning on that first day, Sajjan. And it was very clear by that point, to them at least, what was happening. And it’s difficult to describe really, because here you’ve got this group of really experienced, really, really old hand detectives, mostly, who I met, who were quite an intimidating group of characters, and you’d be forgiven thinking walking into a room that you were walking into one of those old CID (Criminal Investigation Department) offices from the 1970s. But actually, what I found was, yes, I found those experienced detectives, but they were just the most committed, compassionate, professional group of people I’d ever worked with and under immense pressure to support victims, to recover the deceased, work with the injured and investigate what happened. I had never seen that level of passion and commitment in a group of people responding to one thing and pulling together in a way that was astonishing.
And don’t forget, at the time, the anti-terrorist branch was relatively small as well. We’re talking hundreds, obviously, but not, I mean, this was not a huge unit. So, I think by one o’clock that afternoon, I’d made a decision in my head that if I was ever going to get the opportunity, I was going to come down to London and work in counter-terrorism here, Sajjan. And then as the investigation went on, the scale became clear. I was able to take a variety of different roles in that first week or two, helping out in different ways, either related to the crime scenes and related to forensic examinations, supporting some of the exhibit handling and the body recovery work. But in a really peripheral way, if I’m honest, I was a pretty junior officer just trying to do everything I could to help.
And then 21/7 happened, the second round of failed bombings. I say ‘failed,’ they still caused huge disruption, but thankfully, obviously, no loss of life. I was able then to get deeply involved in some of the scenes and some of the evidence gathering for the specific suspects in that case, including a brilliant piece of work around Osman and his escape route from his bomb scene. And that was me hooked then, Sajjan, for the rest of my career, really.
SG: If we build on that then for a moment, you were dealing with a lot of these plots where al-Qaeda was trying to target the UK, to hit Britain repeatedly. For example, the police called one of the plots, Operation Crevice, where an al-Qaeda cell had a large amount of explosive material. There was also Operation Overt, which was the airline liquid bomb plot where al-Qaeda planned to blow up several transatlantic flights mid-air.
Then there were other inspired types of plots, like the one where individuals tried to blow up a nightclub in London with a car bomb, and then they went to Glasgow Airport and tried to inflict harm there. If we factor in all of these incidents and the work that you did on them, how did they shape your understanding of the evolving threat landscape during that period
DM: Yes, thanks. So, you’re talking about a lot of those really informative investigations, which, if you were to look at the structure of counter-terrorism policing today and how we work with partners differently and how we do business, they were informed by those investigations.
Rhyme and Crevice, both investigations that took place before 7/7, really complex, but the beginning of those really deep, complex international terrorism threats that were transitioning from the Irish-related terrorism threat we’d seen before and into international. 7/7 then really kicked off that work in the biggest possible fashion, and then Operation Overt, the liquid bomb plot, and all those plots that then followed were some of the most complex plots we had seen, where you were seeing often directed threat from overseas, and often very large or complex plots that involved explosives and bomb factories and targeting crowded places and specific locations. And what that began to do for us, Sajjan, is change the way in which we looked at the threat and how you respond to it.
So, you began to see, after 7/7, the Contest Strategy became a UK government strategy that we really hung our hats on. Before that, it had been done quite quietly and almost in secret, but in 2006, we saw it published and it started to drive a lot of our structure. We focused significant effort on ‘protect and prepare.’ How do we make sure society, the public, policing and businesses in the country more broadly is prepared for the outcome of a terrorist attack and what might happen and can be protected in the best way possible? But we also then saw so much significant change in counter-terrorism policing. SO15 was born, Sajjan, which was SO13, the anti-terrorist branch and special branch combining into a joint intelligence and investigations capability, working in a new way with MI5 and our security partners. That was a milestone change that then led to the creation of similar units around the whole country.
So, all those investigations that you just referred to and quite a few more, some of which were terrorist attacks that we responded to, some of which were very complex disruptions where our job was–we had great intelligence, we worked really hard to keep the public safe in every way. They really informed the structure of counterterrorism policing today. It’s tough to keep hold of people long enough for that corporate memory to still be there now, Sajjan, to be honest with you. But me being as old as I am, I know I look 28, Sajjan, and your listeners can’t see me, but I am, you know, 32 years and 22 in CT (counter-terrorism) means I’ve seen it shaped through that time. And it really does generate an awful lot of discussion today, even on how we make sure that we keep that corporate memory going, because we learned so much in that period.
SG: If we stick with that aspect of corporate memory. You’ve detailed just how complex and challenging the threat was in the UK. If we were to expand that by looking overseas, you’ve also had to deal with terrorism abroad that directly impacted on the UK. When responding to high fatality incidents overseas, what are the first questions you ask as a senior leader before deploying resources or offering UK assistance?
DM: I’ve had the privilege of deploying overseas to mass fatality incidents. In Amenas is the one that really stands in my mind, because I and a few members of my team spent a great deal of time in a mortuary and in the Sahara Desert, doing the best we could to recover UK citizens that were killed or injured in that incident, and then work really hard to identify them and bring them back to their families here. It was a commitment like I think I’ve seen in very few teams, working in close proximity in pretty challenging conditions, I have to say. But equally, I performed a sort of a role, we call it a SIM, a Senior Identification Manager. It’s how we work through a process with a coroner to identify victims and return them to their families in a forensically sound and safe and secure way. But I’ve done that for the Tunisian beach attacks and other things as well.
Frequently, though, we don’t have any jurisdiction overseas, Sajjan. So, what this is really about is our engagement with government, and then our engagement with foreign partners. First of all, are we welcome? And if we’re welcome, who in our close operation and strategic partnerships is also attending? So, for example, are our Australian colleagues going to be there or our Canadian colleagues or colleagues from the FBI? If we’re all attending, how can we help each other and make sure we deploy the right skills, kit and equipment? And how do we make sure that we’re sharing those relationships across those international boundaries? Because it’s really about negotiation and influence when you’re there. We’re not there to take over another country’s investigation. It’s a very, very stressful and difficult time for them. Having been to most of the terrorist attacks here in the UK, I can appreciate the challenge they face. So, it’s really about that negotiation.
Certainly, in my priority, but the team’s priority here all the time on these occasions is, how can we gather as much information as possible to inform either a judicial or coronial process in the United Kingdom at some point? But over and above all of that, how can we make sure that we’re doing the right thing by the families of the deceased and those that are injured? Because in fact, I still speak to a lady, you’ll forgive me for not saying her name on here because I haven’t asked her permission, but she lost her husband in the Tunisian beach attacks. And I performed that senior identification manager role alongside another colleague who deployed to Tunisia to return all of those deceased back to the UK, conduct postmortems and identification processes back here, and return them to their family.
And I still speak to this lady. She is a force of nature that has managed to get an audience with so many prime ministers and foreign secretaries and almost single-handedly, Sajjan, so motivated was she by her experience, the service she received from us and that support and compassion that she successfully changed government policy towards victims of terrorism overseas. So, when you enter these things, you enter these things with a very practical requirement, but you come out with, I think, a) long-term relationships with international partners, but you [also] come out recognising how much of an impact you have on people’s lives, so individuals’ lives, and what that can lead to. And this lady is an amazing example of tremendously good things coming from utterly appalling incidents. And she’s channelled that energy–and she’s channelled that energy to me as well, to be honest with you, because it does keep you going. You spend some time with her, she’s an inspiration, she really is.
SG: Well, I know from all our interactions that you are always personally invested in those that have been impacted by terrorism. So, this is yet another example of that. If we stick with the Sousse beach attack, because that’s a really important example of an ISIS attack that occurred.
You’ve covered some of what I wanted to ask you, but perhaps if we can also look at—that the UK response to it required a lot of deep victim identification, as you were talking about family liaison, there was cross-border coordination. What aspects of that operation challenged you the most as an investigative leader? And how do you balance the technical requirements of that complex overseas investigation alongside the emotional impact that that has on families and also on the officers who naturally are having to deal with a very challenging environment and dealing with the bodies of innocent people that have been killed?
DM: Such a good question, because your listeners will be sitting here now thinking probably, look, we send police officers out there, they engage with local police investigators, local hospitals, and mortuaries, and we work very hard to secure British fatalities, to confirm their identification. The worst-case scenario for anyone in any international environment in disaster victim identification—which is the Interpol process that this works within—is to bring somebody back who isn’t someone’s loved one. So, we have to—that commitment is absolute, that we will only return people to their loved ones that we’ve confirmed absolutely their identification. And many years in the past that hasn’t always been the case for a number of governments and after a number of incidents. And that’s a very technical process.
What sits alongside that, and was unusual about Sousse, for a terrorist attack, is these people were on holiday. So, their next of kin and their loved ones were with them most of the time. So, the unsung heroes are our family liaison officers. And these are officers that we train and that work very closely with bereaved families and sometimes victims, so injured victims’ families. But we took a lot of them with us to Tunisia on this occasion, because loved ones were there with the victims of this terrible attack. So, you have to be able to have those very, very difficult, but ultimately tremendously compassionate questions about how technical a forensic identification process can be and then balance that with doing that in a way that you recognise [that] this is going to have a lasting impact.
These victims are going to remember these—and their families are going to remember these—conversations for the rest of their lives. And even if it’s down to the little things, like we help repatriate them with amazing support from the government. Some challenges, Sajjan, and if I was an operational officer, it would be wrong of me not to say there are some real challenges in how we work sometimes together, but tremendous support from the government. If you recall, the RAF placed aircraft availability to repatriate people through Brize Norton, an extraordinarily unusual step to take, but were able to do it. So, the amount of support that went into those victims and their families is incredible.
But ultimately, the long-term relationships are those senior investigators and those family liaison officers. And you have to balance how do you negotiate with another country where we can’t go and seize—we haven’t got a legal power to seize evidence. How do you negotiate diplomatically and in an operational context to secure evidence? Well, my experience, and I’m sure many other police officers will tell you the same thing, is whilst there are legal challenges, most operational police officers anywhere in the world got very similar experience for some of the challenges they faced and you can have those operational discussions that help you ultimately because you’re there to support victims and get some answers for them. And as long as you remain focused with a really clear strategy on what you’re there to do, and you’ve got some boundaries to what you’re there to do, and you understand those boundaries, my experience, Sajjan, is that we tend to achieve these things. Sometimes it’s much more difficult than others, but there’s really good legal and moral reasons why most countries come together in a way. Even in challenging areas where we might not have a policing footprint from the UK, we do tend to strike up those relationships in a way that I’ve very rarely seen a problem.
SG: Thank you for explaining all of that. It just shows you how complicated it is, but also how you and your colleagues were able to demystify those challenges and find solutions and pathways, especially dealing with the ISIS threat from abroad.
As we were also perhaps fearing during that time that it was almost inevitable that we would start seeing ISIS-related plots happening on the UK mainland, and you were involved in the response to each of those major ISIS incidents that occurred in the UK, with the Westminster attack near Parliament, where a British police officer was also killed amongst other innocent people that were mowed down. We had the Manchester Arena bombing for the Ariana Grande concert, and then there was also the London Bridge terrorist attack as well.
What does that kind of operational tempo do to decision-making under pressure? Because these were different types of plots to the al-Qaeda ones, and how does that differ from ISIS in terms of how you were having to deal with it?
DM: So, you’ve hit on quite a few issues all at once there Sajjan, which is great. These things are never done in the heat of the moment. This is really about how closely can we work with our intelligence partners to understand the threats, and then how do we make sure that both in ‘protect and prepare,’ so the parts of our organisation that look towards the future and the preparedness of society and security measures—how do we make sure bridges are safe? As you’ll know, we learned some significant lessons from 2017 about safety from vehicles being used as a weapon.
But we don’t do those things on the day. We do those things in training and exercising and planning effectively beforehand, and of course, we’ll always learn things. Things never go 100% right because that’s just not how life is. As you said, five attacks that year, and all five extraordinarily different, and in Manchester, just the most appalling loss of life in an utterly appalling set of circumstances, and an attack that was unusual for the type of threat we were seeing at the time as well, which was low sophistication, self-initiated terrorists often not being directed from overseas, often almost creating—self-radicalising in an online environment, and so very, very different. But you saw the way the policing and emergency services responding, and more importantly, the way that everybody then is open to that scrutiny of a public inquiry, and we’re always looking for how we can do things better, and sometimes that’s through judicial processes and sometimes not.
But that year and that tempo had been informed by many years before, three or four years before, of really effective high-threat disruptions where attacks were being disrupted on a regular and routine basis, and we were learning so much about ISIS and the method of operation and the changing threat from being ISIS giving people permission and direction to do something, to people getting that inspiration from ISIS rather than the tasking. And so throughout that year, I think quite a few of us aged substantially, to be honest with you, but every time we went into one of those incidents, even when they felt tremendously close to home. Lots of my colleagues and I walk along Westminster Bridge every day; we’re intimately involved with the security of the Parliamentary Estate. Lots of colleagues in Manchester and British Transport Police know that venue extremely well and have often been involved in policing responses there. It feels very personal, and so you take that with you, but I think in a tremendously positive way, Sajjan, it gives you a lot of energy.
The Commissioner currently here, Sir Mark Rowley, was the Assistant Commissioner of Specialist Operations, so Head of Counterterrorism at the time, and we were literally having a short break between terrorist attacks and moving on to the next terrorist attack, but I didn’t see energy levels drop visibly anywhere. But we do also have to realise that our ambulance staff, our fire brigade, our security teams, the public as a whole, and of course policing and counterterrorism, it does take a toll on people in the end, Sajjan. So, we learned a lot about well-being and resilience of our teams and how to look after our own teams, because we need to be there for the public, and if we’re going to be there for the public, we have to make sure our teams have got that support and energy around them, and that’s what it was for that year.
I had a variety of different roles in those jobs, but each one of them, the best thing you can do is, whatever that role you’re doing, is just literally throw yourself into it like it’s all that matters, and that’s the kind of response that you tend to see from, in lots of scenarios, for policing and other agencies, but for counter-terrorism, that’s the response you see, Sajjan, at a time like that, is everybody pulling together. It’s really quite an inspiration to see. And of course, you’ve still got to be there for victims at the hardest time of their lives.
SG: Most definitely. It seems to be, sadly, that common dynamic, that with every attack, there are victims, and the consequences, the long legacy that that creates, and I think when we talk about victims, the one incident amongst many that I always find very traumatic was the Manchester arena bombings, because we saw the fact that so many young people, many girls were killed in that.
The culprit, Salman Abedi, it seems had misogynistic beliefs and tendencies alongside his ideological agenda. There was an incident prior to that bombing where, at a college in Manchester, he’d actually beaten a girl because he didn’t like the length of her skirt, and some of the other ISIS plots, if we look at the Westminster attack or the London Bridge attack, these guys were actually violent to their partners, their girlfriends, prior to joining ISIS.
One thing I’ve been researching, and it’d be interesting to get your take, is there seems to be a common dynamic where there is a motivation where their hatred of women aligns with their desire to join a terrorist group. And it’s kind of interesting, what acts as that gateway, is it the ideology that fuels the misogyny or is it the other way around?
DM: So, I think you’ve hit on a perennial question that I’m not sure it’s that easy to answer, Sajjan. We’ve done some work here, some amazing work in our Prevent strand, understanding adverse childhood experience and how that can affect people that we see in our terrorist cohort. There’s some really, really interesting studies on domestic violence and other things that help to shape people’s mindsets during that time. But I think sometimes it’s very difficult to see what comes first in ideology terms and whether the ideology drives the behaviour or whether the behaviour is there and the ideology is aligned to it.
So, that is difficult. But it is also something that we’re very keen to constantly look at. So, almost every one of our investigations, even when it’s an intelligence-led disruption where we’re working over a long period of time to monitor individuals, activity, behaviour, conduct, keep the public safe in a proactive way, intervening before there’s too much of a risk to the public. We always consider those factors because you can see that. The other factor you haven’t mentioned is we frequently see lots of pornography in terrorist investigations. And that is another factor that we have explored, and academia has explored over time, Sajjan. Any information that helps understand that, and the mindset of individuals undertaking this activity and what they’re interested in is always helpful to us in spotting trends and because that’s what we’re really looking to do here.
We’re looking to understand people and people are very complex and terrorists with multiple motivations are particularly complex. And so, in when to intervene and ensure that we are—when we intervene, we want to sustain disruption, we want somebody to be either in custody or under some form of controls in the community or receiving psychiatric help they might need, but in a way that is sustained or for public protection. And that’s really hard when you start talking about trying to understand people’s personalities and drivers for why they do things. It’s one of the reasons, Sajjan, why sometimes the right-wing threat we face is a bit more complicated than some of the other threats we face, because the ideology and motivations can be really difficult. And of course, we’re talking about extremes here. When I talk about right wing, I am talking about extreme right-wing terrorism. So, those mixed motivations can often be really challenging.
SG: Yes, it is, it’s deeply challenging. I’m glad also you brought in that aspect of violent pornography, because that definitely has become a major social issue in terms of the challenges that we face.
Before we pivot to dealing with hostile state actors, there’s one more question I had actually on terrorism and that was to do with Salman Abedi, the Manchester Arena bomber, and his brother, Hashem Abedi, who assisted him in that, who was in Libya when the attack unfolded.
How difficult was the process in getting Hashem Abedi extradited from Libya? Because I have to be honest, when I heard that there was this effort to get him back, I actually genuinely did not think it was going to be possible and full credit to all of you for being able to make sure that happened and bring him to justice for being involved in that horrific terrorist attack.
DM: Yes, thank you. Look, really important to say here, I’m the commander of counter-terrorism policing in London, right. But equally, I also have responsibility for international operations for counter-terrorism policing, so everything we do internationally comes from here. But some amazing work by my colleagues, particularly policing in the Northwest, so up in Manchester, in a) securing the evidence, but b) really driving the intent from all of the international partners we need, when you’re getting to that extradition process, which from a country like Libya, but by the way, lots of countries in the world, extradition is negotiated on a case by case basis and whilst it’s very difficult for me to talk about, and when those negotiations are underway, we can’t really talk about it, because there are all sorts of legal and diplomatic challenges with that. But yes, I thought this was going to be difficult, and my only real involvement in that part of it was to facilitate our international operations relationships to help our colleagues in the Northwest of the UK. But this was a really sustained effort, and it took a lot of people, government involvement, a huge amount of cooperation internationally to achieve that.
But actually, the drive and focus, and it sometimes gets lost a little bit, Sajjan, in the emotion of it, the drive and focus of my colleagues in the Northwest and anyone involved in this process, to bring anyone responsible, including Hashem, to justice for the victims, is an overriding sense that you will see in lots of policing, that you’ll definitely see in counter-terrorism policing, where—I come back to my first point really early on, actual—this is all about the victims and the families and getting justice for them, and then keeping the wider public safe, learning the lessons, as we have done after the public inquiry. So, it was something of a coup to achieve that, I have to say, but it took a huge effort over a long period of time, and of course, some very forward thinking from elements of the Libyan state to be able to facilitate that activity. So, I was really impressed that the team could achieve it
SG: Most definitely. And yes, shout out to our friends in Counter Terrorism Policing North West. I know them very well. And they do a great job.
DM: Really impressive, Sajjan, really impressive.
SG: Absolutely.
In a normal scenario, Dominic, this conversation would have been enough for anybody to be in awe of the challenges and the work that you’ve been doing. But you also have an additional portfolio, which I now want to talk about, and that is dealing with hostile state actors. You had to deal with the incident in Salisbury, where Russian agents were involved using the chemical agent Novichok to try and kill a Russian dissident and his daughter. And we saw that fatalities actually did emerge from that, and it had huge consequential impact on the UK. When you first received the briefing that a suspected nerve agent was involved, what went through your mind operationally? Because I can’t imagine that this was a normal type of thing that you were having to deal with.
DM: Well, funny enough, so seven and a half years down the road now, Sajjan, and just in the last two weeks, clearly, we’ve seen Lord Hughes present his report from the public inquiry. And Lord Hughes heard a lot of evidence. I myself did eight or nine, maybe even 10 days’ worth of evidence in that inquiry. And I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on the answer to your question, Sajjan, really. And this was really, truly unprecedented. But I had already been involved and leading CT policing’s response to hostile state threats work for a few years before 2018. And it was a burgeoning mission that was growing in the past. Special Branch had done some of this work. But since 2006 and the creation of SF15, and an end to the Cold War, as was at the time, we saw a distinct change in the threat, really. So, we did pivot a lot to counter-terrorism.
And I was on the Litvinenko investigation as well, Sajjan, important to say, very junior role in that, by the way, but on that investigation, and I saw the effort and the work and the engagement on that. So, taking some of that learning, and in fact, I even spoke to a couple of the original investigators of the Litvinenko case at the very start of Salisbury. Because anything that involves actual Russian spies on the ground in the United Kingdom conducting activity comes with huge complexity in terms of how you handle the intelligence, the information, how successfully the Russians or any other foreign country in these cases could disrupt our investigation. So really unusual from the start to be treating this as a highly sensitive, top-secret investigation from the moment we start.
And it might seem a little odd, seeing as I work in national security and counter-terrorism, but to respond to a potential assassination attempt, and the subsequent death of Dawn Sturgess, whose parents conducted themselves with such amazing resilience throughout the whole of the public inquiry, is really unusual, that top secret nature. But I remember my first discussion, when we found out it was Novichok. And interestingly, at the time, we found out it was a fourth-generation nerve agent. There still had to be lots of discussions on exactly what it was and where it had come from. Your focus is the same thing, Sajjan. How do you find it, keep the public safe, identify who used it, when and how, as a means of identifying who was responsible, so that you can try and bring them to justice? And if you stick to those really essential principles of why we’re here as the police, when a major incident happens, and you need to investigate it, then I don’t think you can go wrong. Because ultimately, what sits behind you are a set of values that are so important to victims, their families, the public, and why you even exist as a service to deliver that. How you do it might change. And in this case, it was very different, by the way. But how you do it might change, but not the reasons why you’re doing it. And that helps you drive your prioritisation and your work in a way that cuts across nearly everything that we do.
SG: Many consider Salisbury to be a turning point for modern UK national security. How did that investigation reshape Britain’s approach to dealing with hostile state actors?
DM: I would agree with that analysis as well, by the way, that it did reshape—it certainly reshaped counter-terrorism policing’s response to it, as the national response to it. But colleagues in the National Crime Agency do some impressive work in this space as well, by the way, and it shaped how they do work. But it also reshaped how our intelligence, the intelligence community, our international partners and government approach this as well. What it did, I think, Sajjan, was demonstrate what many of us have been saying, and that was that we were seeing an uptick in activity by Russia, but also by the Iranian state and by others. And we were beginning to see that coming through in operational activity here in the United Kingdom.
I heard the NATO Secretary General interviewed yesterday, talking about Russia. And this wasn’t a remote thing happening somewhere else that was of interest and concern and important to us. This was something happening here. We were seeing more and more activity by individuals in the United Kingdom. Not on the scale of Salisbury by any stretch, by the way, but we were certainly getting involved in more investigations. Then when Salisbury happened, we looked at what was behind it, we had a very, very comprehensive and detailed investigation, not just responding to Salisbury, but in the manhunt investigation. And I was specifically at the early stage; I led the manhunt part of this. Who was responsible? Why did they do it? And where are they now? And how do we get them in custody? Jointly with another senior officer, who also did an amazing job, who has anonymity, so I can’t mention his name, but did a brilliant job at responding to these crime scenes.
And between us, we worked so closely together with our intelligence and international partners, when it became clear, all it really did, Sajjan, was vindicate that here was the start of what we had said we’d seen developing, which was this increase in operational activity in the United Kingdom, and what it meant to us. And, yes, I really felt a tangible sense of, this is a game changer for us. And what it meant to me is I came back from Salisbury, I worked differently with intelligence and international partners, I worked differently with counter-terrorism policing. And in addition to my CT portfolio, worked nationally with senior leaders from here to create a hostile state threats mission within CT policing. So how do we pivot some resource, change our ways of working and think differently about state threats? So now, we have two solid missions, counter-terrorism and state threats is our growing and essential mission for hostile states, and we’ll continue to build it. And we’re seeing a level of work that I don’t think anyone really expected, but that truly shows Salisbury and then events in Ukraine really do seem to have fast forwarded Russia to being a very specific and difficult threat domestically in this country, not just overseas.
SG: It’s really interesting how that’s shaped and developed and how you were at the centre of creating that whole apparatus to deal with that threat. So, you hold, as we’ve been discussing, the national responsibility to counter state threats. Without going into any specifics, what trends worry you the most when it comes to the three countries that seem to get mentioned the most—Russia, China, Iran—in terms of their clandestine activity, and does it differ in any way?
DM: Well, what worries me most is the speed with which some of their activity is accelerating. So, we do see an awful lot of demand now coming particularly from Russia and Iran, but not universally, we still see some threats from China. I think the second thing that I have in my mind is the breadth of work. So, you can see transnational repression, perhaps at one end of the scale, which is to victims, by the way, is terrible. Transnational repression is our umbrella term for when foreign states are trying to repress individuals or communities here in London. So, you might see the Iranian state trying to harass and force individuals from the Iranian community, dissidents or outspoken individuals against the government, to return to Iran or to some other country where they can potentially be kidnapped and forced to return to their home countries. You might see their families being harassed in their home country, and you might see online activities.
A terrible example in recent times from somebody who was subjected to what’s become known as the Hong Kong bounties, where their neighbours were sent some terrible information about them. That transnational repression is really impactive on victims, by the way. It does tend to not necessarily involve substantial amounts of violence and threat to the wider public, right through all of the information gathering, espionage, even recently sabotage activity becoming increasingly common in our workload, right through to targeted assassinations. And that breadth is very challenging, which is why we need to focus so much time on this and deal with it slightly differently to counter-terrorism. And it’s really important.
And I think the third thing I’ll say is that what we’ve seen since Salisbury is there’s lots of different reasons for this, by the way, but I think one of them is the hostile environment we’ve begun to create here in the United Kingdom. It’s much harder for these countries to operate with their own operatives on the ground in the United Kingdom than it’s ever been, in most cases anyway. And it means that we’re seeing this proliferation of criminal proxies. And that is a stark change in the last sort of 18 months, two years that we’ve seen. And they’re often young people, but not always. And they’re not always criminal proxies, by the way, we’re seeing legitimate businesses being asked to do things, which it turns out are for foreign intelligence agencies—private detective agencies, or there’s been a few examples of this. And that change in operating model means we need to really be very agile and pivot to the threat very quickly. And I’m pleased to say that some of our new relationships with intelligence and international partners means we can do exactly that. And that’s why we’re confronting, you’ll have seen me talking publicly and your listeners would have heard me talk about this more than ever before, because we’re now pivoting so much towards disrupting that threat in a different way, and it’s having some success, but, you know, we always learn from these things, we’re never complacent about that.
SG: It’s fascinating and chilling at the same time. To move to the final segment of our discussion, Dominic, which is leadership—recently, we saw that awful terrorist attack that occurred in Bondi Beach in Australia. And we saw the modus operandi where you had individuals using firearms to kill innocent people on the beach. And it was interesting to also see how it was unfolding in real time. What is the first thing you want to know in a major incident that comes across your desk, in general, and perhaps if you can also comment as to what transpired in Australia?
DM: I’m sure you and your listeners would understand that so close to a significant incident like that in a foreign country would be very, very difficult for me to talk with any authority or comment really on what happened. There will of course be a substantial investigation. I have an awful lot of trust and confidence in our Australian Federal Police colleagues and our policing colleagues in Australia. I work very closely with them. And I know that the professionalism they’ll bring to that investigation, I have confidence, will be of the highest possible levels. But what I think we saw there, Sajjan, that is quite unusual and that we wouldn’t have seen before is, we’ve pretty much seen, haven’t we, a live streamed terrorist attack. At one point, there’s a drone filming that’s publishing its footage about what was happening. This is something that I suppose we’ve been anticipating and could see. But still, it’s been quite a rare thing to actually see in terrorist attacks that happen. Sometimes the individual might film themselves, but that’s a very different thing to what we’ve seen here.
And so it does mean a tremendous amount of evidence is available to you very quickly to try and understand what’s happened, to try and give families answers to how their loved ones were injured or killed, which still remains—again, I come back to my first point, really, why that’s so important—but then, of course…because if I was sitting at my desk and someone called me and said there was a terrorist attack like that happening right now, I have confidence that my frontline policing colleagues and my firearms colleagues are going to be doing their best to keep the public safe and putting themselves in harm’s way to make sure that happens. I don’t have any doubt about that at all, much as I didn’t have any doubt about what happened in Australia and that that was probably the case there as well. None whatsoever. I’m thinking, while that’s happening, how can I get as much information about who they are and what they’re doing so I can then understand the wider threat to the public and get in front of anything else that might be happening? So, I’m almost singularly focused. While that terrorist attack is being brought to a close and the public are being kept safe, how do I make sure I’m looking at that wider picture and understand how I can keep the public safe from any enduring threat that’s out there?
It’s frequently, Sajjan, why you’ll see us after these cases, and in 2017 we saw this a lot, by the way, is we’ll track anybody connected to those individuals, we’ll investigate them, and if we need to, arrest them very quickly, because we will not tolerate that enduring threat to the public from that incident. And so, we’re focused on it. So for me, sitting in a national security counter-terrorism leadership role, I would be making sure my resources were doing everything they can to respond to that incident, investigate and support victims and their families, and making sure that I was doing everything in my power to pursue those responsible, find out who was behind it, and in essence, keep the public safe from any further threat that might exist from that case. And as is often the case, unfortunately, it does work like this, when you see a terrorist attack, sometimes others can be motivated by that attack. And so, then we have to widen our gaze with our intelligence partners on what it really means outside of that specific incident, what does it really mean to our public safety more broadly.
And even in Australia, I’m already thinking exactly what my colleagues and my peers there will be thinking, which is, okay, what comes next? You saw the response from the public. That is astonishing, by the way. The bravery of some of those people that tried to intervene there is inspiring. Nonetheless, I’m thinking, okay, well, you know, if it was me now, what would I be doing to protect the public from a wider threat? It’s probably a very long answer, sorry, Sajjan, but it’s such an important part of what we do. It sort of goes to the heart of why we’re here, really.
SG: No, and it’s a really important answer, and thank you for providing such clarity, especially when the information picture can be confused or contradictory at times. It just helps for everyone who’s listening to understand how law enforcement deals with something that’s unfolding. And I absolutely agree with you that the Australian Federal Police, as well as New South Wales Police, they have some really outstanding people and they will completely unpack exactly what transpired. So, one thing, Dominic, that you have been doing in your role is that you speak to the media. And you’ve always been a very measured, reassuring and informative voice when you engage with problems that have emerged in the UK and perhaps have a wider dimension. How do you approach communication with the media during a fast-moving crisis? Because on the one hand, you want to keep the public aware of what’s going on, but obviously you can’t share operational sensitive material. So, you make it look easy, but it can’t be that easy.
DM: It really isn’t easy. And I don’t know if I would say I enjoy it, but I do like the process of trying to…the public is such an important part of what we do, Sajjan. They really just go to the heart of everything. If our relationship in counter-terrorism breaks down with the public, we’re not going to get the information. We’re not going to get ahead of time to help respond. People aren’t going to have confidence in how safe they feel from terrorism or national security threats. And I always think about it in my mind as, I get the opportunity to talk to the public about something that to me seems every day, but I realise to lots of people it isn’t. And that can then cause them some concern, or they can be unsure about things, so if I can go and do something that informs them and helps them stay alert, but in no way alarms them about what we’re doing, that’s it. The work we did on Daniel Khalife is the one that strikes me because we very rarely do these very live daily media briefs that are iterative—here’s an incident happening, this is what we want the public to do for us. And that was my first time at doing something like that. But I felt that the public were tremendously engaged. The media were incredible. And the media get quite a lot of criticism.
I have to say in our world, when we want to get messages across, even now, we’re talking about in the winter season as we come into the spring and we’re talking about winter vigilance and how the public can be alert and try and stay safe and call us and how to get in touch with us. The media are such an important part of that. And so, something I’ve had to learn, Sajjan, I’m going to tell you and your listeners a secret that I tell very few people: before I joined the police, this is terrible, I was a DJ and karaoke host, Sajjan. So, I’m used to standing up in front of people and embarrassing myself, so I didn’t really approach the media with any particular concern.
But such an important part of what we do, and I have found the media so open to having discussions, and long form, just like this, Sajjan, is so important because you get to have the conversation we’re having, which is to really talk about why we’re here and why we do what we do. Sometimes you just don’t get that chance to talk to people like that. It is a nerve-wracking thing, because you’re in the world’s media, aren’t you? And I have children and they give me direct feedback, Sajjan, you won’t be surprised to learn. And in fact, the very first time I did the Daniel Khalife, my phone was vibrating in my pocket. And I waited a while, and then when the media finished, I looked at my phone and it said, “It’s true what they say, Dom, the camera adds 10 pounds.” So, I think that tells you where we are in policing, that people will give you some very honest feedback, Sajjan.
SG: Well, I won’t reveal what my family says about what I do!
DM: We’ve got some shared pain there. That’s good!
SG: Absolutely. I’m probably more shocked that you revealed that you had a background as a DJ. We’ll deal with that in another podcast!
DM: I was young, I needed the money, Sajjan, it’s fine!
SG: Fair enough! We spoke earlier about misogyny, its ties to extremism and terrorism. On the plus side, we’ve also seen that there’s been greater support and advocacy for women attaining senior positions in the police and national security. You yourself have been a major advocate for that. I wanted to also mention the initiative by our mutual friend, Alison Duncan-Mercy, who’s director for strategy for counter-terrorism policing, whose initiative WINS, Women in National Security, is growing by the second. Why are things like this important? And also, how does one get more male advocates for this endeavour?
DM: My experience is that I don’t think I have a problem identifying male advocates for that endeavour. I’m not sure some speak out necessarily as publicly as they might. But I’ve never experienced anything other than absolutely positive role models and advocates for increasing both the diversity of our workforce, which in CT can sometimes be a problem, but the gender balance in our workforce. But also, me personally, Sajjan, the truth is, some of the most inspiring people in a senior leadership role I’ve ever worked for in this organisation have been female. Terri Nicholson was one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever worked for. I loved working for Cressida Dick when she was the assistant commissioner here, specialist operations and as the commissioner of the Met. These are some of the strongest female role models you could possibly imagine and just inspire everyone around them. It doesn’t really matter what gender you are or what background you’re from. They’re just astonishing people. And the work Alison’s doing with WINS and well supported by our Five Eyes community just demonstrates that.
We’re looking at a different way of bringing people into counter-terrorism. And I did some articles on Police Now recently. And we’re using some direct entry means of trying to recruit from a different group of people and bring people in to bring different skills and perspectives into counter-terrorism. Police Now has allowed us to see a significant majority of people coming in to try and join us are female candidates and from a different, a very diverse background, and it is incredibly valuable to see that. And if all I’m doing is being a voice and an advocate for allowing that to happen, I’ll stand at the top of the building and shout about it, it’s fine, because it’s inspiring to see some of these young people coming in, and they’re coming in with a different perspective on life, which you can’t all be like me in my mid-50s and 30-something years in policing now. We need people to come in with different skills and backgrounds, and if you can’t be advocates, and role models, and have strong female leadership in our organisation, how are you going to change the organisation if you can’t really just have the right representation? And it’s something I know that the Met have been doing huge amounts of work on after a really terrible couple of years now, but I’m already beginning to see some of that positive difference in some of the behaviour we see as an organisation, our professionalism, but in also how we have these conversations with the public is so important.
SG: I appreciate you speaking on that, but also on the fact that you mentioned Terri Nicholson, we’ve had her on the podcast, and Dame Cressida Dick, both really, really outstanding and impressive and inspiring people.
If we go back, Dominic, in time, if I could take you back in time, and if you could give advice to a young Constable Dominic Murphy, something you wish you knew when you started, what would that have been?
DM: I’ll give you a serious answer and then a not so serious answer if you don’t mind, Sajjan.
SG: Absolutely.
DM: I think policing gives you a perspective on life that is so incredibly valuable, and I don’t think I really had any idea. I joined my local force, Sajjan, as a PC, and I tried to do it at 18, and they told me that I was from a small village in Hertfordshire and I couldn’t join. I needed to go and do something with my life first, so I went off and did some stuff, went to Camp America, became a DJ and karaoke host actually. But then a couple of years later I went back, and they accepted me and I joined at the age of 21, but I joined my local force because I really wanted to do this locally. That localism was so important to me.
As a young officer, I think I probably would say to myself again, you really just need to…it’s about doing the right thing, and those principles that we’ve spoken about during our talk here, if you stick to those principles and maintain that you’re doing all the right things for all the right reasons, policing can take you to some astonishing places and some astonishing experiences, and you can really try and make the best possible impression on people and have an impact on their lives in some way. I would have probably just pointed to the future and said keep just doing this stuff really well, because in those first few years it can be quite difficult as a probationer, you know, in a uniform environment and then moving into a CID environment, yes it’s a bit difficult, so I would have said that.
The second thing I would have said to myself is embrace the baldness, Sajjan, because it’s coming, and you might as well just get on board with it! I think I probably didn’t embrace it quite quickly enough and had some odd haircuts in my early service.
SG: Well, you pull it off so naturally and so well!
DM: Yes, I’m a slightly overweight older Jason Statham obviously!
SG: Well, so this takes me to the last question then. If a movie is made about a real-life national security crisis, and you were going to be featured, your character was going to be in that, what actor would you want to play you? You’ve mentioned Jason Statham, yup, I think that’s a good one. I should mention some of your colleagues when I was telling them that I was having you on the podcast, they suggested some ideas too. I’m not going to reveal them, or what they suggested! But I’d be curious for your take on this.
DM: Thanks very much. I have joked that obviously clearly anyone looking at me would think it was Jason Statham! but there is a certain…a very high level of irony in that by the way, because that’s clearly not the case. It’s a good question, I don’t know, I haven’t really given it much thought. My wife would have said a few years ago wearing my glasses that one of the former stars of MasterChef might have been the person, but I’m not sure we should talk about that individual or bring that one up any longer. And more broadly, usually some sort of comedy character comes to people’s mind, Sajjan, so who knows.
Do you know what, one day I hope somebody does tell the story of Salisbury in a movie. Do you know, I live near Salisbury, and one of the things that I think gets a bit lost is the people of Salisbury were astonishing, Sajjan. And so, if there was ever going to be a movie made of anything that I was ever involved in, that story that picked up the people of Salisbury and their resilience, and Dawn’s family and their resilience, which was astonishing—that would be an incredible story to tell. Plus, I’m sure my colleagues in international intelligence probably wouldn’t want us to tell that story too much, but I think what an amazing, incredible thing to talk about.
SG: Definitely would be something everyone would want to watch. You’ve provided, over the last hour of this discussion, a remarkable career. You’ve shown how humble you are. There’s a clear aspect of your compassion for victims, which you have spoken about continuously. You’ve demonstrated that empathy. You’ve brought in humour, all these different characteristics. I’ve known you for a little bit of time, and I know you resemble all of these attributes, but I’m so glad that we could have this discussion. Really grateful, Dominic, that you could spend this time. I know how busy you are with God knows what is happening outside the doors unfolding as we speak. So, I’m really grateful that you could spend this time on NATO Deep Dive and perhaps have you again in the future to talk about God knows what may materialise.
DM: Yes, Sajjan, look, thank you very much. I’ve really enjoyed it. And it’s great to see you. We’ve been in several of the same places talking about some really, really challenging things, Sajjan. So, it’s nice to be able to reflect with you on it. Look, I feel like I’m the luckiest person in policing, and I’m probably the luckiest person alive. 32 years, and I love coming to work every day, Sajjan. But my career, 32 years, it’s all sort of probably coming to a little bit of an end now. I feel like I’ve done my time, and there’s some amazing people coming behind me, Sajjan, who I think rightly should get a chance to have a look. So, we’ll see what the next year brings. But it’s been great talking to you about it. It’s wonderful to reflect on it as well. And some of the people that I’ve worked with, it’s been incredible. Thank you.
SG: Thank you. And it’s been our honour and our pleasure.
Thank you for listening to this episode of NATO DEEP Dive, brought to you by NATO’s Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP). My producers are Marcus Andreopoulos, Victoria Jones, Eve Register, and Henry McCabe. For additional content, including full transcripts of each episode, please visit: deepportal.hq.nato.int/deepdive.
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This transcript has been edited for clarity.