Simon Harding

Background

About Simon Harding

I am an expert in homicide, counter terrorism preparedness and protective security. I retired from the Metropolitan Police Service in 2021 after a highly distinguished 30-year career and was recognised as the National Senior Investigating Officer of the Year by the National Police Chiefs’ Council for leadership in the investigation of some of the UK’s most high-profile crimes. My final roles within policing were as a Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) within the Homicide, Specialist Crime Command and Counter Terrorism Command (SO15). Since leaving the Met, I have been consulting with the public and private sector on a wide variety of security matters including critical incident management and counter terrorism preparedness. In anticipation of Martyn's Law that is expected to be introduced by the UK government in 2023/24, I have been working with owners of publicly accessible locations to develop security assessments and bespoke protective security guidance and training for their staff. For that purpose, I created The Protect Duty Delivery Group with Deon Van-Niekerk who has over 30 years' experience in the hospitality sector. I am passionate about sharing my learning with businesses, particularly within the security and hospitality industry and regularly present to security officers and management on the themes of counter terrorism preparedness and investigative decision making. I have developed training programmes to assist companies for this purpose. I have been published in the UK Security Journal Magazine and performed a TEDx Talk on this subject matter in May 2023. In addition to my security consultancy work, I provide advice and guidance to media production companies creating both documentaries and dramas. I have appeared in a number of true crime documentaries and was one of the homicide experts on Channel 4's Murder Island. I provide expert commentary for SKY News, BBC News, TalkTV, GB News and other broadcast and print media outlets. I have recently had three articles published in The Sunday Times relating to expert opinions on crime and policing matters.