A counter-terrorism emergency planning exercise in a nightclub on Sunday saw door security staff from the contractor SGL Security taking on terror scenarios as presented by actors. Kokomo on West Regent Street in downtown Glasgow was the venue for the exercise, the first of its kind in Scotland. The Security Industry Authority (SIA), as the regulator for the private security industry, ran it with Police Scotland counter-terrorism officers and Glasgow City Council.
The training event confronted security staff with one real-time simulation after another, involving actors, of emergency scenarios: a mass stabbing, an acid attack, a marauding terrorist attack outside the club, requiring club-goers to stay inside; and a suspect package. It followed similar events in Chesterfield and London in autumn 2021; the West End club one was featured in the November print edition of Professional Security magazine (‘Last night a DJ saved our lives‘).
Ronnie Megaughin, the SIA’s Acting Director of Inspections & Enforcement, was among SIA staffers there. He said afterwards: “Putting these security operatives into realistic terror scenarios is one of the best ways to prepare them in the event of a real-life incident. We stage a terror incident, watch how they deal with the scenario, and then provide an instant debrief from counter-terror experts. We know from past experience that operatives, and their managers, really appreciate what they learn from these events and find them worth their while. Any of these security staff could find themselves as the first responder at a serious incident, and this training could literally be the difference between life and death.”
And Lee Crofts, the SIA Criminal Investigation manager who co-ordinated the event, said: “The main aim of exercises like this is to enhance public safety in the night-time economy by working with venues and security staff. It’s also to showcase best practice by putting the Action Counters Terrorism (ACT) security e-learning package, which we’ve been recommending to all SIA-licensed operatives, into practice. We’re really pleased with the commitment that all the security staff put into the Kokomo exercise.”
Like much else, the exercises have been interrupted by the covid pandemic; a first test event ran at Buxton, Derbyshire in October 2019.
