Peter Power

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Peter Power

Peter Power, a former Scotland Yard official, has been Managing Director of Visor Consultants Limited since 1995.

Visor Consultants works to prepare organisations for risks and threats they might face. According to Workplace Law Network it uses scenario-based exercises to prepare as well as crisis management and business continuity workshops, corporate resilience courses and motivation sessions. [1]

Background

Power worked with the Metropolitan Police from 1971 until 1990 and then Dorset Police until 1993. During his service, he was a sergeant with the Special Patrol Group, which became a focus for complaints about police tactics during the 1981 Brixton Riots.[2] He was later seconded to the Anti Terrorist Branch and was the deputy forward control coordinator at the Libyan People's Bureau siege in 1984, and 'led the team behind the existing police street philosophy for dealing with terrorist bombs.'[3] Power also coordinated the emergency services efforts at the Kings Cross Fire in November 1987, in which 27 people died. [4]

Terror expert

Power has appeared regularly on television and radio news programmes in connection with terrorism and security items. Between 2000 and 2007 he was mentioned as a terror expert in 119 articles according to an analysis of 'major world newspapers' by David Miller and Tom Mills. [5]

7/7 London Bombings terror drill - coincidence or conspiracy?

On 7th July 2005, the day of the London bombings, Peter Power was interviewed on BBC Radio 5 Drive Time show.

Power told the host that at the exact same time that the London bombings were taking place, his company was running a 1,000 person strong exercise which drilled the London Underground being bombed at the exact same locations, at the exact same times, as happened in real life.[6]
Power was quoted as saying "At half past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing up right now"[7]

Listen to Peter Power's Radio 5 Live Drivetime Interview [8]

Power's admission was cited by some groups as evidence of the UK government's involvement in a cover-up of the 7/7 bombings. In 2008 Power posted a response to a blog on the J7 Truth Campaign's website questioning the coincidence of the terror rehearsals. He named the client who had commissioned the terror drill and gave an overview of the day's events.

"Early in 2005 Reed Elsevier, an organisation specialising in information and publishing that employs 1000 people in and around London, asked us to help them prepare an effective crisis management plan and rehearse it before sign-off. Several draft scenarios were drawn up and the crisis team themselves set the exercise date and time: 9.00am on 7 July."
The test was planned as a table-top walk through for about six people (the CM team) in a lecture room with all injects simulated. Everything was on MS PowerPoint. The location of their Central London office near to Chancery Lane was chosen as one test site. With many staff travelling to work via the London underground system, the chosen exercise simulated incendiary devices on three trains, very similar to a real IRA attack in 1992, as well as other events.
As there had been eighteen terrorist bomb attacks on tube trains prior to 2005, choosing the London Underground was logical rather than just prescient. With this in mind it was hardly surprising that Deutsche Bank had run a similar exercise a few days before and, prior to that, a multi-agency (and much publicised) exercise code-named Osiris II had simulated a terrorist attack at Bank tube station. Moreover, I had also taken part in a BBC Panorama programme in 2004 as a panellist alongside Michael Portillo MP et al, in an unscripted debate (we had no idea at all what the scenario was to be?) on how London might once again, deal with terrorist attacks, only this time it was fictional (created entirely by the BBC).
In short, some of the research for our exercise had already been done. The scenario developed for our client even started by using fictitious news items from the..[9][?] Panorama programme then, as with any walk through exercise, events unfolded solely on a screen as dictated by the facilitator without any external injects or actions beyond the exercise room. Also factored into the scenario was to be an above ground fictitious bomb exploding not far from the head office of the protected Jewish Chronicle magazine where for exercise purposes, our imagined terrorists would have been aware that commuters would now be walking to work (past a building already considered a target) as some tube stations would have been closed.
Of just eight nearby tube stations that fell within possible exercise's scope, three were chosen that, by coincidence, were involved in the awful drama that actually took place on 7 July 2005. A level of scenario validation that on this occasion, we could have done without.
An exercise that turns into the real thing is not that unusual. For example, in January 2003, thirty people were injured when a tube train derailed and hit a wall at speed. At the same time, the City of London Police were running an exercise for their central casualty bureau where the team quickly abandoned their plans and swung into action to cope with the real thing.' [10]

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Affiliations

[12]

Resources

Contact

Notes

  1. ↑ Workplace Law Network http://www.workplacelaw.net/profiles/affiliate/id/68 accessed 14 February 2008
  2. ↑ BBC News, Brixton ablaze: 25 years on, 10 April 2006, accessed 3 November 2010.
  3. ↑ Visor Consulting, Peter Power, Managing Director, accessed 3 November 2010.
  4. ↑ Peter Power Witness, BBC News, 18 November 2005.
  5. ↑ David and Mills, Tom(2009) 'The terror experts and the mainstream media: the expert nexus and its dominance in the news media', Critical Studies on Terrorism, 2: 3, 414 — 437
  6. ↑ We Are Change UK http://100777.com/node/1789 accessed on 14 February 2008
  7. ↑ Prison Planet http://prisonplanet.com/Pages/Jul05/160705web_of_deceit.html accessed 14 February 2008
  8. ↑ MP3 of BBC Radio 5 Live interview available at: http://www.julyseventh.co.uk/media/r5.live.peter.power.exercise.mp3, accessed 3 November 2010.
  9. ↑ July 7th Independent People's Inquiry Forum,Peter Power / Visor Drill on July 7th, 'an exercise involving mock broadcasts',P Power, Homepage, 09.30.08, 10:13am, accessed 3 November 2010.
  10. ↑ July 7th Independent People's Inquiry Forum,Peter Power / Visor Drill on July 7th, 'an exercise involving mock broadcasts': 3 October 2008 addition,P Power, Homepage, 03.10.08, accessed 3 November 2010.
  11. ↑ WCDM Summit Series, Contact, accessed 3 November 2010
  12. ↑ Visor Consultants Peter Power, Managing Director, accessed 3 November 2010.
  13. ↑ MP3 of BBC Radio available at: http://www.julyseventh.co.uk/media/r5.live.peter.power.exercise.mp3, accessed 3 November 2010.
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