MI5 Kidnap and Ransom: Inside the World’s Biggest Cases

34:03Monday night football, plus pregame and postgame. NFL Live, NFL primetime. Everything you need to stay on top of every game, every week. Unbelievable. And now NFL Network is on the ESPN app. More football, more coverage, more ways to watch. Football's on, all season long, on ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app.

34:29Hey, it's Kelly Rowland. You may not know this, but I have eczema. So I get how it can steal your time. But why let eczema take over when you can talk to your doctor about EBCLIS? EBCLIS, Lubrikizumab LBKZ, a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older. who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. EBCLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids.

35:03Don't use if you are allergic to EBCLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBCLIS. Before starting EBCLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Paid partnership with Lilly. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about Epclus and visit epclus.com or call 1-800-LILLY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. You know, and they'll hold them each day so they can take them to the cash point, then they'll let them go. So there's a lot more of that going on.

35:35The sort of higher profile kidnappings, I mean, I've been out of the business for a few years now, but I'm not aware of any great surge. I think the highest amount we ever had in one year was probably 2014. And we probably saw about somewhere in the region of 140 cases. What's the easiest to get away with, the low ones or the high ones? It really does depend on the individuals behind it. If you're dealing with professional kidnappers, they do it for a living, James. They know exactly what they're doing. And they don't want to make a mistake. we don't want a mistake to happen we just want everything to get settled as i say our primary concern is the client you know we know what our losses are because we know what we've insured what we want to do is get the person back so you just deal with it straight away pay the money to get the client back yeah without contacting police thus because if you contact the police without no raise alarms and people could potentially lose their life lose fingers yeah Yeah, absolutely.

36:40Each case is different. I'm not saying that on every single job we wouldn't contact the authorities. We might have to, you know, it depends on where the person is kidnapped, because don't forget there's different laws in different countries. For instance, we can't pay ransom in certain countries, you know, we're not allowed to pay it, you know, so you have to be very careful. Because in, for instance, if somebody gets kidnapped and it's a UK citizen and the person that has been kidnapped, they've been kidnapped by terrorists, we can't pay them because we're not allowed to pay terrorists. So then it becomes a bit more complicated and I wouldn't be able to go into that on a podcast, but there is a solution to that problem, but it becomes much more complicated.

37:26How do you know that terrorists? because there'll be intelligence um don't forget every time there's a kidnapping we'll be recording what data we've got you know so we will keep databases those databases will be exchanged though you know sometimes it might be individuals that are known um you know there'll be a lot of intelligence behind you know not everybody wakes up in the morning and says i'm going to be a kidnapper, normally you'll find the professional kidnappers is exactly that. It's a professional operation. So you'll have intelligence as to who these people might be. And of course, if anything is disclosed where somebody says they are these people, we are terrorists, we've taken this person, then we have to move to plan B.

38:12So do you have like a board, like shoplifters, for instance, petty crime, but some of the biggest shoplifters, when they get in the stores, their faces is recognised. They have them up in the back. Do you have that with sort of... There's intelligence right across the board, right across the board from government departments to the police, to us in the private sector. And I've worked both. I've worked the private sector and government sector. So you'll have a lot of intelligence that will be floating around. So you have a rough understanding of who's behind it just by the way they speak, what they're asking for?

38:43Not always, but you can gauge. There'll be a pattern. You can see patterns, for sure. so it's not just people in the UK you're doing this worldwide we will do it worldwide yeah because we will typically our policies will run to I mean there are countries that you know we wouldn't cover for instance um but generally speaking it will be a worldwide policy and we'll get deployed the minute something happens how long did you do that and there was 16 years 16 years I was doing it for yeah did you do anything else yeah I mean during that time I was still doing my day job because you have to have a day job.

39:20That's the thing that, you know, I think people don't always understand. Your job, your cover, if you like, has to be 90 % truth. If your cover is not 90 % truth, it'll just get blown within seconds. Because if it's 90 % truth, you've only got to remember 10 % of the bullshit, if you like. But if it's the opposite way round, you've got a problem because you'll get found out straight away. What about, did you ever get anybody fake their own death? you get these insurance claims for millions of pounds yeah i never came across one um they have happened you know people people have faked their own kidnappings um and been paid um after this podcast you may fucking see those numbers going up yeah in 26 they'll be in trouble yeah what about the somali pilot pirates and that because they're very well organized i i've interviewed people who worked on the boats and some of them can't even have guns to protect themselves yeah on these boats that don't have licenses i interviewed someone they actually did have guns but they ended up in prison for like five years in india yeah because they never had the licenses but it says they're very well organized it's not them on the boat it's the people on the island who are controlling it the gangsters you know like they're very very well in tune what's on the ships where to take the ships and they're getting paid 500 grand a million two million for certain things on those ships is that correct yeah i mean basically i mean we ensure that you know so so we insure ships um against piracy on the high seas um when it happens i mean i can tell you stories we've we've flown light aircrafts and dropped barrels of cash into the sea to pay the pirates to get off the ship so we can get back control of the ship and it's exactly the same you know it's the same principle you know if we've insured it we will pay it and we want to just get it's people first you know i can't stress that enough so so we will just pay it and the money goes missing which it has done on occasions you know it's it's sunk somehow uh whether somebody's underneath pulling it who knows we just ship more cash out and get the people off the ship take control of it and get it back have you ever lost anyone um we've we've lost people in recovery yeah um it's one of those those things um you know the way it works is you'll have the insurance company and then you'll have a crisis management company most insurers will attach to a crisis crisis management company and it's a crisis management company that will deploy people so they will deploy me to look after the risk side of it i was mainly deployed by clients um and then we'll have a team that will go in and do the recovery and yeah injuries happen you know um there are fatalities it's the nature of the business you know don't forget we're covering explosions we're covering terrorism we're covering bombs you know so yeah you know people people have been blown up people have been injured do you have those sort of james bond figures with the agents to go and do some of that work as well to then stop hostage situations as in do you mean like going undercover to do yeah yeah i mean that there are people that will gather intelligence on i mean don't get me wrong you know every single kidnap is he's looked into every single bombing is looked into and you know you're always looking to gather intelligence because what you want to do is you want to try and prevent something from, you know, from happening.

42:40And over the years, I think, you know, MI5 have got very sophisticated at that. The counterterrorism police have got very sophisticated at that. And if you look at the number of operations that they actually foil before they're completed, you know, they've got a good track record. And that comes from intelligence. That comes from people like us providing that intelligence. What makes a good negotiator? uh you're probably asking the wrong person because i've never negotiated a deal in my life but i've worked with them i think and i don't think the negotiators would have a go at me for saying this it's not that they've got a special skill because you never know how a negotiation is going to go they're just good listeners you know and they can pick up things you know and they can keep that conversation flowing, you know, that's what you need.

43:28You need someone talking, you know, and that's what they're good at. How much red tape is around it when you're in this sort of secret service? Like how, what can you say? What can't you say? Cause I've had someone on from the MI6 as well, and there's certain things he couldn't say, which is understandable, but what sort of, what's the sort of legal stuff around doing things? I mean, for me, um, I'm an agent, so I can pretty much speak openly as such. You're still under the official secrets act anyway, because I was, when I worked for the government before this. um but you know you use common sense you know i wouldn't go and disclose how we do things you know for instance um could i be prosecuted for it yeah of course i could what they would allow you to say is that they don't want you to talk about any specific jobs any jobs you've been involved with any current jobs it's not it's irrelevant to me now but they don't want those kind of things you know discussed um and that's pretty much their stance so as long as you're not stupid and you do the right thing when i was producing my book you know i i sent part of it to the police so the police signed off their bit it even went to the dwp because they were featured in it and the services were fine because i'd kept them informed right the way through the process and as long as you're doing that and you're not disclosing names and you're not being stupid you'll be fine how big is a secret service some people say it's the best in the world like obviously the americans i think Israel and China, Russia.

44:50How big is ours? Ours, in comparison, is much smaller. Some people will say that the Chinese have the best secret service in the world. I'm always going to be patriotic and say that we have the best special forces in the world, and I guarantee that. And I think we have the best intelligence services in the world, in terms of our people, absolutely. We might not be as big. I mean, if you look at, I don't know what the numbers are in special forces, but I think you're probably 500, 600 strong. I may stand corrected on that, but I think that's about right. You know, in the US, it's probably 100 ,000.

45:27Yeah, special forces are sent to none, like... There is so much NFL on ESPN right now. Monday Night Football, plus pre-game and post-game. NFL Live, NFL Primetime. Everything you need to stay on top of every game, every week. Unbelievable. And now NFL Network is on the ESPN app. More football, more coverage, more ways to watch. Football's on, all season long on ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app.

46:01Hey, it's Kelly Rowland. You may not know this, but I have eczema. So I get how it can steal your time. But why let eczema take over when you can talk to your doctor about EBCLIS? EbGliss, Lubrikizumab, LBKZ, a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies, EbGliss can be used with or without topical corticosteroids.

46:35Don't use if you are allergic to EbGliss. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EPCLIS. Before starting EPCLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Paid partnership with Lilly. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about EPCLIS and visit ePCLIS.com. Or call 1-800-LILLY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. At ZocDoc, we know being a healthy adult is like living in a video game. Every day has side quests, taxes, laundry, birthdays. and just when you're leveling up, you have to book a doctor.

47:12The insurance portal crashes. They put you on hold. Your doctor doesn't take your plan. Game over. We see you. So we made booking a doctor easy. Download ZocDoc. Search by specialty, insurance and availability. Book instantly. No cheat codes required. Find a doctor you love with ZocDoc. You know, those guys are unbelievable. They're SES and that. I see you, Brent. I believe they're the best in the world. People might not agree, but I've interviewed enough of them to realise their mindset is different. How did they train them? Why are they so good? Well, I think if you look back in history, the Special Air Service set the benchmark for everybody.

47:53The US Navy SEALs is based on that. I just think it's just their training and, as you say, their mindset. And again, if you look at their training, it's all confidential. you know i did work for special forces for three years i was never allowed on on their base you know um it's a very closed you know sort of community really what sort of what did that involve um there was two sides to it really sometimes it would be intelligent sometimes they they want to know about certain markets so we're able to provide political risk information sometimes it might be certain things need insuring because don't forget we had the contracts at the time we were insuring quite a lot of military kit um and also wars are insured equipment's insured you know some of these these things are worth billions as you can imagine so everything carries some form of guarantee and some form of insurance yeah what is big business so it's not just about the oil you own the poppy fields and all the other stuff that comes but you're actually getting paid as well for insurance yeah yeah i mean you know i'm not saying everything is insured in a war zone but most things have some form of insurance or guarantee whether that's a government guarantee or whether it's an insurance policy if you've got aid workers they've got to be insured what else did you do i predominantly specialized in that and i also did financing i was with the broad bank of scotland uh for a number of years i still kept my job within uh within the secret service and for for rbs i was doing invoice finance i don't know whether you're familiar with that It's basically working capital facilities.

49:32So I was combining that, you know, with insurance. Is it a double life? It is a double life insofar as, you know, I never told a soul. The only person in my life that knew that I was doing stuff pretty much was my father. There was a few people, you know, particularly partners that I had that noticed things weren't quite correct, but I never disclosed. um and so you do feel a bit of a double life and and when it all came to a to an end um that's when i think i felt it the most how so well because of my wife passing away i'd never really drank alcohol we just didn't have alcohol in the house we were never drinkers after they both passed it was kind of a habit you know i got into finishing work and having a drink and it just escalated from there over a period of years and I don't mind admitting you know I'd become an alcoholic and I was still working um it was going on notice for a long period of time because the way I covered it up um but it got so severe that I could no longer cover it up and it and it had come out and at that point you're not much use to anyone you know so things you know things came to to to an end um I wasn't dismissed as such.

50:56And funny enough, I lost both my day job and the Secret Service job within the same week. They were coming to see me. I'll never forget this. And a good friend rang me. We'd been on a lot of jobs together. And he says, Norman, whatever you do, don't drink. Don't drink. They're going to be with you at 10 o 'clock. But by this time, I was a bad alcoholic, James. I was getting up in the morning. I was having a bottle of vodka. So I had to go to 10 o 'clock without a drink. And I knew I could do it. So I got up. I didn't go to the shops. I waited, I waited. And then they rang and says, oh, we're running a bit late.

51:33We're not going to be with you till two o 'clock. Or as you can imagine, by two o 'clock, I was half cut when they arrived. So the paperwork was just put on the table. And that was the end of the matter. You know, so they left. And I then went to the pub. And a couple of days later, my daytime employers just say, yeah, we're letting you go. I'm laughing mate Because I understand it Because it's It's mad where it takes you How you Because you know Your life is a mess You know you're just Losing and destroying Everything Not just with yourself But everything around you And I interviewed an amazing girl Yesterday Charlotte Crack addict Heroin addict Over 10 years in prison 77 convictions Prostitution Now she's one year clean Looks amazing Doing amazing Like for anybody Watching and listening you've got more to give you can make changes do you then become obviously a major liability yes you can service and the banking system because if i'm sitting there i was a gambling addict so if i'm working with the bank i'm transferring funds to my account i don't give a fuck if i get caught yeah you're gonna make all kinds of mistakes and they they they won't let that because what happens is you get drunk and you start talking and then i was i was terrible for it i mean i was i was getting picked up drunken disorderly by the police oh mi5 this that special forces they just saw he's walter mateysa he's a bit of a nutter let's just just leave him and that went on for uh you know for a for a few years um i was in a bad way i openly admit that how long were you drinking for a long time um i pretty much drank for i'm not saying i was an alcoholic for that period of time because i wasn't i was controlled drinking i was coming home and having and drink but it went on for a good 15 years but towards the last five years i would say i was an alcoholic how bad was that in your worst days my worst days were i was getting up as soon as i woke up time to go to the shop i had one of these 24 hour off licenses that was it i would get up in the morning you know probably 7 30 walk down to the shop i'd buy two little miniatures and a bottle of vodka i'd drink the miniatures on the on the way back to my apartment and and that would be my life and that went on for some time would the absolute when you go through that process what did you lose around you at that time you lose everything you know um because people you know people mean well your friends mean well your family mean well but you know they don't want to see you turning up at their house is drunk all the time so i think you become a reputational risk from a professional standpoint, so people detach from you.

54:17But they perhaps are not understanding how much you're hurting, you know, sort of inside, you know. And a lot of things had caught up with me, and my drinking was a way of just blanking those out. You know, I developed PTSD for a number of different reasons, and once that set in, and I know that alcohol is no cure for that, but what I found was you drink the alcohol and you've forgotten about it the problem is you sober up in his back and you know alcohol is not the answer but it took me a long time to realize that yeah it's a it's a sad existence isn't it when you're struggling so much and you don't know how to turn you know what was the turning point then how was it actually losing your job because you obviously enjoyed that something very private and secret like it is something you would feel something internal it's a big secret but I'm doing this mad job and but how was it when you actually lost two in the week you you would think it was um how can I put it I should have at that point woke up and said what have I done um but I didn't I carried on drinking do you know I I lost my positions in 2014 from 1998.

55:37And I was still drinking, you know, after that point for a number of years, James. You know, I was doing little bits of work here and there in the private sector, but I was still drinking. I hadn't quite, you know, got that out of my system. And then one day, you know, I just got to the point where I was doing stupid things. I was waking up because I lived not far from a police station. Every time a helicopter went up, I was thinking I was at work, you know, I was starting to see things that just weren't real because it was the alcohol. I was having images come back to me from, I remember Rwanda when I was 20 years of age and what happened out there and all those pictures were coming back into my mind.

56:19And alcohol was helping me forget those things, but the minute I stopped drinking, they'd come back. So I found it very, very difficult to step away from that. So it went on for far too long. What happened in Rwanda? Well, there was genocide. I was very young and I was dealing with political risk at the time. And it's just something I've never forgotten. And I think the official figures were there was 800 ,000 people that were slaughtered with machetes predominantly and gunshot. But I think the numbers were near 1.1 million you know if i'm honest and i won't say it on a podcast but i will say it was horrific you know horrific and this happens all over the world look what's happening in nigeria and it doesn't even get the publicity the amount of christians that are being killed and churches are being killed obviously with palestine like it's mad but how how dark the world can be and some people are oblivious to it you'll see that little things on the news to lower your vibration and make you think the world's a bad place but there is a lot of what goes on you know that people don't understand and we'll never see and and you know it's something that i had to adjust to because i was coming home hey it's kelly roland you may not know this but i have eczema so i get how it can steal your time but why let eczema take over when you can talk to your doctor about ebglis.

57:45Ebglis Lubrikizumab LBKZ, a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema, also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. Ebglis can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you are allergic to ebglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems.

58:16You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EPCLIS. Before starting EPCLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Paid partnership with Lilly. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about EPCLIS and visit ePCLIS.com or call 1-800-LILLY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. And after 10 years of being a widower, I did remarry and my marriage fell apart after about five years. And again, my fault, and I regret that, you know, God gave me a second chance and I messed it up. You know, I still love my second wife to this day. I don't mind admitting that to anyone. But I was coming home with all the thoughts of the jobs and things in my head that people don't see.

58:59She never saw. She would never understand because she's not involved with it and to be honest you have to adjust you have to learn that people don't want to know they want to go to mcdonald's at the weekend they don't really want to know what's going on in another part of the world and people being slaughtered and people being killed when you're coming home having seen that it's very hard to you know adjust back and that took me a number of years to to just be normal if you like was there anyone you could speak to back then about mental health for? No chance. Um, now it's a lot better if you went and you said, look, I'm not feeling particularly well, or I've got a bit of stress.

59:44Goodbye. That would be the end of your job. Um, nobody's, nobody's going to keep you on, you know? Um, so there was a lot of people suffering. It wasn't just me. Um, but you couldn't speak out about it. If you said, you know, I think I'm having a breakdown, you're gone. It's as simple as that. You, you, you know, they might not, you know, people might not dismiss you and whether it's private centre, whether it's government centre, but you'll notice jobs will just not come in. They won't be landing on your desk and it will just slowly fizzle out and that's how they'll do it. Yeah, you become a liability, not just to yourself, other people are doing it.

1:00:25It's life or death in some of these situations and And if you're not switched on, you're putting not just yourself in danger, but others. Oh, it is, you know. And that's why, you know, as I say, and I said earlier at the beginning of the podcast, when you asked about negotiation, I wouldn't negotiate a kidnapping for someone because it's not my area. You bring in the expertise in what you need. The worst thing you can do is do a job that is not your job and you're not good at. You know, I was known for risk. People would come to me and say, Norm, what can we do with this? How can we get rid of this risk?

1:00:57and I would know how to get rid of it. If somebody comes to me and says, Norman, we need you to negotiate. No, that's not for me. Norman, we need to do an extraction. Well, you're going to need to call special forces for that. Let me make the call. You know, we will bring in the right people to do the right job. What is the biggest risk to the UK, do you think? I think, I actually think it's the political risk. And I think that the UK has, and I'm not just talking about Brexit here, whether people think Brexit was a good thing or a bad thing. I think the world is a changing place and markets are emerging.

1:01:35If you look at Africa, it's growing. So I think the biggest risk to the UK is actually political, you know, and I think it's geopolitical. I don't necessarily think it's the political risk within this country. I know we've got people, you know, sort of shouting and jumping up and down over migrants, over boats and over that kind of stuff. But I don't think the political unrest will happen in this country and I don't have any concerns there. I think it's the geopolitical risk and the knock-on effects in the other markets that will severely impact the UK. And we need to really, as a country, be aligning ourselves with the countries that have got that growth.

1:02:13And I just don't understand why the government aren't doing certain initiatives. You know, we should be at the forefront of some of the innovation that is going on within Africa at the moment we should be helping to build that infrastructure you know there's great opportunities and great growth but we seem to be a bit stagnant you know I think the UK you know it's not about having more companies we've had I think for the last couple of years record numbers of companies formed a company's house James but they're not producing turnover you know what we need to do is scale the ones we've got you know um and I think I think if we can align ourselves to growth and be that pillar of stability, then I think there's great opportunities, you know, for the UK.

1:03:01Yeah, I can never see Britain getting involved with Africa. Look what they've done with Gaddafi. They killed that cunt and what he'd done for his people. That was a thriving country, you know, but he tried to get away from the dollar, you know, and like I said, all the dictators have got some evil in them, but... Thank you. And Britain seems to be, I don't know too much about it, but it seems to be at its weakest now. And I don't think it's going to be anything to do with illegal immigration. I think it's going to be a religious war. I think it's going to be Catholics and Islam. I think there's going to be so much unrest and so much divide by social media and the media for people to hate on each other.

1:03:35And it's just going to come to a head. I think we've got, what we've got is almost diversification. Because if you go back 20 years, and you had a particular theme, and you asked an opinion, what do you think of this? You would probably get 90 % of people say, oh, that's right. And probably 10 % say, oh, no, that's, that's not right. now you've got so many different views and social media has had a part to play in that so it's very hard to get general consensus across the board um so the political risk for the uk i think is is that general consensus that you know we're not getting and and there are things you know there are things brewing and there are people you know trying to cause divide you know let's not ignore that you know um how it will pan out i don't know i hope it doesn't pan out into anything you know um civil unrest or anything like that because i've seen it all over the world and it's not worth it i just think the divide is too easy now i think the government played a part in that though i think that whatever they create is all planned in my eyes and that people as human beings we're so easily guided whether that's right or wrong for the right or wrong reasons i think we can be easily because we all feel something we all want to be part of something that's why people go to football that's why people yeah absolutely it's belonging religions yes there's a sense of tribalism there and i think there's no common sense left right i don't give a fuck who yeah if you're good to me i'm good to you but i just feel as if the divide is so much now people think that what their side is right these are all fucking wrong because you're all fighting against each other change doesn't happen with everybody arguing and fighting change happens with conversation and i think britain has become weak in a sense of it's taking away the freedom of speech i don't like when people start making death threats and i don't think it's good people telling people to burn down fucking migrant hotels like that's wrong and but you've got to have an opinion i don't follow governments i don't really give a fuck about them if i'm honest um i think they're all the same i think they're all controlled but i just look at other people the majority of people just want to get on in life the majority of people just want to work and have a happy life go a couple of holidays a year and not bother anyone but social media has made it so unsafe for people and it's made people paranoid to then leave their house and do this and then they're blaming people to watch one video and then they'll just target a certain group and i'm looking at it thinking these are all being played yeah i i'm a believer in freedom of speech and, you know, I'm the old sticks and stones.

1:06:18Um, and I certainly don't believe we should be sending people to prison for tweets and it's happened. Um, and that's just a personal belief, you know, um, I think if you look at, you know, their words, you know, um, people can, you know, sometimes people say the wrong thing. Sometimes it's heat at the moment, you know you can sit down you can apologize you can sort that out these are things that can be sorted you don't need to destroy someone's life you don't need to send someone to prison who's never been to prison before because they've you know they've sent a tweet that okay it was a little bit naughty um there's other ways of excuse me of punishing them you know i don't believe that a custodial sentence is the right way to go yeah definitely for hearty words you know but i don't believe in then inciting violence either so there is a fine line you know do this and do that so there is a fine line but i just think the uk is becoming so soft and we're known as a fucking strong nation we're known as a united kingdom conquered over 90 of the world which is wrong in my eyes as well but you wonder if other people then plan to then retaliate for the thousands of years and hundreds of years of destruction that the uk have caused there is that um but i think you know if you go back in history long enough you'll see all countries are in the same position you know um we often get you know it's often said the uk has done this the uk has done that but that's because you've not gone back far enough in history yeah um so i think that what we need you know really is is a firm lead and and control and you see when governments do u-turns that doesn't help because it creates you know almost instability you know what you need is clear direction and you need to be saying this is what we're heading for this is what we want to do and you need to take the nation with you you know um and i just think we're we're lacking that a little bit and that's that's the shame at the moment yeah there's not really any belief that it's going to change like the taxes are through the roof prices are through the roof people the living prices and living costs are just too much for people people's dynamics i mean if you look at the number of bars restaurants that were around 10 years ago 15 years ago have a look now they're closing on a you know at a high rate and if you look at the cost of living that has gone up is you imagine you know being in your your mid-20s you know and you're earning an average wage how do you ever buy a property that's going to be extremely tough rent is high so you don't have much money to go out and socialize you know you go out and you buy a couple of pints i don't drink anymore but i've seen prices at six seven pound a pint well you have two pints with your power that's 12 or 14 pounds well you can subscribe to your favorite creator for 9.99 a month which is what's driving that market so how did you what was the turning point for you then to stop because everybody has that point i think it was you know i was going through a stage where i'd had enough and you know i think the you know the attempt on my own life was the time when i just thought you know what what what am i doing and and that was the turning point for me you know the mental health hospitals you know were the turning point you know when i came out i kind of vowed i mean don't get me wrong it didn't happen overnight i was released a couple of times um but third time lucky you know i came out and that was it that was the changing point i knew that if i didn't I would end up dead whether that's because I've walked out and got hit by a car being drunk or whether I've had liver failure or something and I thought to myself I've got so much good to give you know if I'm going to die I might as well die doing something worthwhile you know um you know I might as well go and try and get somebody home from a war zone or something you know I might as well die doing that rather than taking my own life and that was a turning point for me and meeting the right people you know i i think who you hang around with you know um doesn't necessarily determine your actions but you know i was hanging around a lot of heavy drinkers and sometimes you just got to accept that your social circle needs to change when did you end up in the minute answer to check uh well basically what happened was i i went in voluntarily you know i don't mind admitting that I wasn't sectioned but I knew something wasn't wasn't right you know I didn't feel right I kept seeing things um what were you seeing I kept seeing bombs uh for some reason um I'd seen a lot of explosions in my time and I was convinced that bombs were around me and they and they weren't and I went to the doctors and said look you know this is what what's happening eventually after a period of time I was diagnosed with alcohol-induced psychosis so it was kind of a difficult one because I had PTSD and now I was diagnosed with psychosis so the problem was I was drinking to get rid of the PTSD but then I would get psychosis so if I stop drinking I get rid of the psychosis but then I get the PTSD so it was a long journey.

1:11:45What was it like in there? I found it top rate you know and I'd been to two different ones different parts of the country and um you know i know you hear a lot of bad stories about them um but i didn't have a bad experience i can only speak from my own personal experience and you know i thought the staff were amazing you know um i thought you know i thought the setup was good um and i think they often get you know and i'm sure there's people who would disagree with me and they had a bad experience but you know i'd be lying if i say if i said i had a bad experience because i simply didn't How long did you do the first time?

1:12:25The first time I was in there for about two and a half weeks. And then I was out and the second time was about three weeks. And the final time was about two weeks. But you'll be amazed what can get achieved in that period of time because it brings it home to you very quickly that you see a lot of ill people, James, and you're all in the same place. but there's people in there a lot worse off than you, you know, and you realize that. So what you want to do is get back to your family life. You want to pull yourself together. You know, you want to focus. And that's what happened to me. But I was released and I had the care then that went with it.

1:13:09I had the EMDR treatment. I had the home visits and things like that. So EMDR treatment, what is that for people who don't know? Yeah, it's eye movement. And don't ask me how it works because I don't know. but it does and it's it's accompanied with talking therapy so it's a light that moves from left to right and you follow it as you're going through this talking therapy and what you notice is at first you think what's all this about but a few days later honestly um you start thinking things and you're thinking differently so it's certainly worked for me 100 percent and how many times did you end up signing into the mental institute uh i went in a total i think including um earlier years probably about four times in total in my life so when you just felt as if it was ending you just seen yourself in yeah well it wasn't quite as simple as that it was more to do with i would end up in hospital in in the first place and then the doctors would suggest to me look it's better if you go into mental health care.

1:14:16So I've always been, you know, sort of referred in rather than knock the door and saying, can you let me in please? Because, you know, there has to be a referral system for it. When did you try and take your own life? It was in 2009. What had happened was I'd lost, obviously my wife and child earlier, but I had a very good friend of mine. Sorry if I get a little emotional now, but he unfortunately got killed, and that kind of was a big sort of, I felt like I'd lost half of me at that point, and I got into an extremely bad way, you know, and I looked at life, and I didn't want to carry on at that point, and I took an overdose, and that's, you know, that's what happened.

1:15:13I later found out that taking an overdose is not the way to do it because, you know, you become ill for a long period of time. It's not an instant thing. But luckily, I got the right help. And I'm still, you know, I'm still here today. What did you try and take? I took a load of tablets, everything that was in my house, because at that time, we get issued with certain things. So I have antibiotics, I have Oromorph in case we get injured, things like that. So I had loads of, I had a little drugs cabinet there. And I couldn't tell you what I'd taken. I was found by my neighbor because my neighbor had been out with his wife for a stroll and he saw my light on and he was quite late and he looked through the window and I was on the floor.

1:16:06So next thing you know, they called an ambulance and I was taken in. That nosy bastard saves all life. Sake of life, yeah. Baiting in people's windows at free in the morning, cheeky cunt. So what was it then? Was that the first you'd ever tried and took your life? It was the first time I'd ever tried to do it. And I bounced back fairly quickly.

1:16:35And then the years passed, as I say, I was fighting. I went back to work then and then I lost my job obviously in 2014 and I was fighting you know sort of illness you know quite you know for some time and then in 2023 I think it was I originally started well I got put down for EMDR treatments and that started the following year and I did that and that was you know a road to recovery. How was it trying to recover because again Charlotte yesterday when you make the changes it's painful because if you're high on whatever you're taking or whatever you're addicted to it blocks out all the misery and all the unrest you've caused and all the hurt and all the pain but when you start going through the journey one of the hardest things about change is remembering the shit that you've caused yeah you have all that to deal with and you know you have the thing that you you kind of miss a drink.

1:17:36You know, that's the thing you have to get over as well. You miss that first pint, that high feeling, that kind of thing. And I've gone out of it now. You know, there was a time where I just avoided things. It was just for my own good. So I wouldn't go into pubs. I would stay away. I can go into a pub now. I can sit and have a client meet and I don't have an issue. But if I tried to do that a year ago, it wouldn't happen. You know, I would have had a drink. So I needed that discipline in my life to stay away from that and I think once you go a period of time you realize what a fool you've been and you you know for me I wasted 10 years however I look at it I mean there were some good things that happened in that 10-year period you know I got to write my book for instance I got to meet new people I got to experience new things but when I look at what I could have achieved in that 10 years if I had a packed up alcohol you know I'll always look back I'll always regret that because all we have in this in this world is time James that's all we really have is time and I wasted that time um and now you know I'm looking forward to to the future with with more positivity than than what I've ever had how long you've been off it now um it'll be a year just over a year where I haven't you know sort of um been on any binges or had the urge to you know I've come close to it but I've been able to but don't don't get me wrong for the last sort of three years the way I got off alcohol I'm not sure it was the right thing or the wrong thing but it got me where I am today was I went into a strict you know diet if you like where I only drank once every three months and the mentality behind that was it gave me something to look forward to if i could go the three months and i did that for a period of almost three years and then i completely stopped how long would the binge last in the early days i could binge for for a week uh towards the end it would be a day or two two days tops so after the three months after the three months i would drink for a few days normally what would happen is i'd have a heavy session one day then the next day I would have a reduced session and then I'd just stop.

1:19:53Were you taking gear or anything? No I've never done drugs I don't do drugs um alcohol was my drug um and rightly or wrongly I think alcohol is one of the worst if not the worst uh if I'm honest um certainly it was for me. Yeah it's a glorified one because everybody does it so it's more acceptable. Yeah and it's on every street corner um and depending on what your finances are like it's relatively cheap you know um and you know i like i say jams i'll always live with that with that regret yeah but you're off it now you know but is that the way you were handling it then so you could give yourself a little fucking break but then smash yeah it was the only way i because i was leading a very lonely life you know don't forget i'd live i lived on my own a lot of my friends had passed away either being killed on the job or you know my best friend had a heart attack for instance so I'd lost quite a lot of people in my life and I'd lost my brother in 2000 you know my brother work-wise um I'd lost him in 2009 so I lived quite a lonely life so I needed something to focus on I needed something to turn around and say I've got something to look forward to and what I used to do was stay in my little flat and think right if I can go two and a half months three months then I can set this date in my diary and that's when I can go out and have a drink and doing that for two years is what eventually got me off yeah but fair play and congratulations you know for making the changes you ended up involved in the sort of porn industry writing books about it how did that come about i mean what what happened um was a client rang me and asked me if certain things were were true from a risk perspective because they were looking at commercial contracts and I said well I don't know and then I started seeing um all these different stories um about pornography and what its place was in society and there was so many different views on on social media so I thought you know what why don't I go and investigate it and you know why don't I write write a book about it um because I'd done my last book two years ago it'd become a bestseller in its genre so what are your books and where can people buy them for The first book I did was Holding You Covered, which is my time in the Secret Service.

1:22:12It takes, you know, it demonstrates the products that we have available, how it all works, how we put it together. And it takes you on a few jobs. So it takes you on a kidnapping job. It takes you on a recovery job, that kind of stuff. And then it tells my personal journey from the day I started to the day I retired. It covers, as we've discussed, the loss of my wife and child. It uncovers what happened in my personal life with alcohol and all that good stuff is all in the book. And the second book is porn. What's your fantasy? What's the reality? And what I've done is I've done an investigation into the industry.

1:22:56I'm not for the industry. I'm not against the industry. I've just really taken an objective view and I've just laid the facts on the table and said look this is the industry that people ignore but it's a hundred billion pound industry it's three times the size of the music industry and yet it has no formal legislation it does have crossover so you know they are governed by general legislation but it doesn't have its own you know legislation it doesn't have its own rules if you like um so i went into the industry i give the history of pornography how it came about um there's quite some surprising things when you look back in history because it was commonplace in if you go back a few hundred years um porn was accepted in society and now it isn't and we could argue that now it's starting to be accepted more but i don't think society has to accept pornography because they already have by the number of sheer clicks it gets, you know.

1:23:59There's hundreds of billions of clicks, you know, on pornography. So I wanted to get, you know, sort of into the industry and understand, you know, what the nuances were, what the risks were in industry. So I look at it from a risk perspective. So I break down the risk to society. I break down the risk even to the participants on some of these, what have been called public events. I break down what the risk is for them. And then I take you on a journey through the actual pornography industry itself, where I think it might end up, whether or not it should be regulated, whether or not it should be licensed.

1:24:42So it's for people to get a real understanding of what they see on screen because i do go into how it's made what they see on screen is not really what is happening you know where can people buy these books we can buy them on amazon the porn um what's your fantasy what's the reality that doesn't come out until the 15th of january but will be available on amazon you can go on to www.normantaylor sra sierra romeo alpha.com so normantaylor sra.com and you can see all of my books on there because we talk about alcohol being one of the worst drugs porn is just what was up there yeah you know i've interviewed enough people to understand the more porn you watch the more depressed you actually are so for all you wankers out there do a little research on it because it is damaging your brain everybody has fantasies everybody gets a bit freaky from time to time it's life it's hormones but just know what you're consuming is damaging you i believe but porn then how did it start how did we start sort of filming and and you know sort of sort of depicting sex and putting it onto a screen well if we go back into ancient times um and i do this in in the book it started with you know you had carvings you had the japanese that were doing stuff um and then when you got the movement of camera.

1:26:02Obviously, that changed things. But the real driver for the industry was VHS when that came out. And that sort of elevated things. But it was always, in society, to obtain pornography, you'd have to go out to get it. You'd have to go out and rent the video or buy the video. You'd have to go out to buy the top shelf magazine. But when the internet came along and the platforms came along, you no longer need to go out. So therefore, the surge happened. And now we've got, obviously, the online platforms where people can sell, you know, their material. so what started as as being kind of common but not sort of in in your face is now on your screen James um and we can't afford to ignore that anymore you know because when I was growing up you know pornography wasn't a thing you would have to go looking for it so you'd have to go to an adult shop or you'd walk in a newsagent and there'd be top shelf magazines but you'd have to make that trip.

1:27:11Nowadays you don't, it's on a screen. And, you know, I'm a believer that consenting adults can do what they, you know, they want to do. But we as a society need to bring in adequate protections, particularly for the young. And what we don't want is a society growing up thinking that that's how sex is and that's how, you know, because if you look at a lot of the people I interviewed in their mid-twenties, when I asked them where they got their sex education from, they got it from pornography. Well, that's not a good place to get your sex education from. And hopefully when people read the book, they'll get a good understanding that what they see behind the scenes is vastly different.

1:27:58You know, once they get an understanding of behind the scenes, you know, if you look at what some of the men put themselves through, James, with penile implants, having pumps installed where you get an erection on demand because that's what's required in the porn industry. The amounts of injections, the amounts of Viagra, you know, it's not as easy as people think. And, you know, it's very hard for males to survive in the porn industry because the gender pay gap is reversed. women get paid more than than than the men and a lot of men often often have to go into um men-on-men scenes because that's where the money is that's how they get they get paid so it's a very difficult industry but i also believe that they don't and shouldn't be stigmatized for what they do you know because society is it's almost like it's being consumed you know in private but denied in public.

1:28:58So it's a legal industry in this country. It's a recognized industry. So therefore, the stigma should be reduced, I believe, but I believe controls and regulations should be introduced. How damaging is porn? Personally, I think it's like anything. You know, I don't, you know, condemn people who drink. I go out now with people. If you said to me, come on, Norman, let's go to a pub. I can sit and have a chat with you in a pub. I'll drink orange juice or have a coffee, it's not a problem. I think it's down to individual's choice, but it's like anything in life, it's within moderation, you know, and if you are a viewer of adult material and it's within moderation and you're not letting it affect your relationships and your personal life, then you'll be okay.

1:29:44In the same way as if you come home from work and you finish the shift having a couple of pints of a night and, you know, you go to bed, you'll be okay. You're not likely to become an alcoholic. But if you're getting up in the morning and watching porn throughout the day, then there's a problem. In the same way as if you're getting up and you're drinking alcohol, there's a problem. So I think it's about, you know, it's about moderation. What I noticed was there was more people watching porn than I actually anticipated. You know, when you look at the sheer numbers, you know, because when you interview someone and say, do you watch porn?

1:30:23I say oh no no not not really well not according to google you know um so what we seem to have is more people watching it more people denying it and i think the only way we can address it and the reason why no government has really come up with the right legislation is because they're not discussing it and if we don't discuss it we just pass the problem on to the next generation smartphone we need to be discussing it now so that the right you know with any industry if you look at any industry that is worth for argument's sake 20 billion say every single one of them has some form of regulation or some kind of requirement to join you know the point should have that it should have you know basic protocols hygiene testing awareness consent is a big thing as well But all these things are lacking because there's no actual infrastructure.

1:31:22So you can't blame the creators if the governments, and I'm not just talking about the UK, you know, I'm talking about as a whole, if they haven't put some kind of mechanism in place that they should be working to or working towards. but that's why it's free because it does damage you know and yeah all these people who don't work and maybe coming back drunk and watching that there's no connection anymore because they're seeing that as real life it ain't real life it's not normal it's absolutely right it's not it's not there's a part in the book where i call it the lonely planet and i went into a chapter where i talk about the impacts of social media and social media is that you know it's been great in certain areas and not so good in other areas.

1:32:04But if we continue to have all the things at a search bar, then where does the interaction come, like me and you are having now, if everything is a smartphone? If people are watching pornography and treating that as, if you like, their partner, as it were then where does that leave traditional relationships you know everything you know i think there's a certain high percentage of society that have got into social media so deep and i often believe this that instead of living their own life they're living their life through somebody else's they're following somebody else's life instead of living their own and you need to get that balance to make it healthy and i think that if we don't get that balance and ultimately everybody's just on a search bar and everybody's subscribing to whatever platform and getting their pornography on that platform interaction's going to go down and it's going to be one one lonely planet james the search bar is interesting in itself like actually can you give me my phone steph is there there's a graph to see what men actually search for.

1:33:22Right, okay. So this is the chart here. So the most viewed categories by gender. For men, it's mouse, mature, anal, and transgender. They've also got big dicks in this category, but that's below lesbian and threesomes. The women's favorites categories is lesbians. Yeah. So it's porn turning people gay, or they just in-house gays or what? Like, it's not... That chart's pretty... It depends how you look at it, because with porn, it's... It's an escapism for a lot of people to look at their fantasy, but it's not what they'd actually really do. You know, so it's filling a void. You know, it's like when you watch a film, you know, you watch somebody, you know, rob a bank.

1:34:10Denzel Washington goals and robs a bank. You want Denzel to get away, but you wouldn't want that to happen in real life. And it's similar with porn, you know, providing the people watching it accept that it's not real and it's just a fantasy. The more we can educate people that it is just a movie. For instance, if me and you were watching a Denzel movie and it wasn't particularly great, we would start criticizing the actor and saying, well, he put on a poor performance there or whatever. But we never do that with porn. That's because people don't talk about porn. And if people discussed it more openly, then there wouldn't be that stigma against it and then you can deal with the issues that you know surround it because there are people who are addicted to pornography without a shadow of a doubt and that can't be healthy because now we've got the only fans girls and i've interviewed enough only fans girls and men listen i think they're all sound what they've done is just monetized yeah they're monetizing people's weaknesses you know and it's not even weaknesses that men just want to feel part of something men just want to speak to someone men just want to have a friend not everybody who subscribes to OnlyFans are seedy they just want a connection now porn is free but yet people would rather subscribe a 5 or a 10 or a month to speak to someone or just feel part of something as well I think one or third of men are virgins like men are lonely as well and women are monetising that to their advantage because porn is free but yet we've got OnlyFans it's one of the biggest hitters in the world one of the biggest subscription platforms in the world so people are subscribing been to it and I think it's becoming more normalized now like you say people don't speak about it but you've got your next door neighbor now could be doing OnlyFans not everyone is making money from OnlyFans as well people need to understand that yeah but there is people making millions from it per month there are and and you know those top creators are entrepreneurs let's face it you know they're business people and they're very good at it but if you look at the stats of OnlyFans and again it's in the book it breaks down the numbers but from memory you're looking at if you're going to to sort of rely on the income it's going to be your main source of income you've got to be in the top 10 % okay before you could say right I can live off this now the sort of money you mentioned in terms of millions that's 0.01 % of people on OnlyFans the majority of people on only fans so you're 90 are earning less than 150 pounds in a month and yet some of them are doing the same sort of sex and whatever that everybody else is doing so to rise to the top in that in that sector is very difficult to do what do you think of bonnie blue um i don't have any personal you know thoughts on her i think you know she's running a business um i don't follow her i don't subscribe to her um but as i say i kept an open mind when i was when i was doing doing the book um she's running you know if you like a machine there you know and she's generating sufficient revenue um i understand now there's been some issues with her overseas yeah um and i don't know what the latest outcome is on that um because you know i've i've not heard anything regarding it.

1:37:26I think I saw a note in the newspaper saying that she had been arrested, but she's been released at the moment, pending further inquiries and had a passport taken. It's the latest I was reading on the train on the way in. I like her. I've met her, I've spoken to her. I think she's sound. I think she's very business savvy. Yeah, absolutely. She knows how to play the game. She knows how to get that rage bait. She knows how to get clicks. 1.5 million a month. She was making. Do I agree what she does? No. do I have issues with her? No it's the thousand men standing outside to fuck her that I think is this where we are as a planet?

1:38:03that is so seedy but again it's men's choices, these men could be virgins these men could be anything though you know, rapists, paedophiles you don't know who's queuing to fuck her I think as a society we can completely lose ourselves because if that gets normalised then where do these girls from OnlyFans go you know and it's the people who subscribe to watch that and i think is this the standard that we're setting for humans is this the standard that we're normalizing that's important part of me is to blame as well because i'm promoting her she doesn't need my promotion she can get anywhere else but i found her fascinating good looking girl as well quite funny very hard to interview though because she tries to be make sexual passes you know and it can free you off and that you're just you're trying to be professional get a story listen have a laugh as well i'm not a fucking robot but she knows what she's doing and a lot of weekend men would fall for her or bullshit you know and yeah i like her i don't agree what she does but it's her business her body her choices she can do what the fuck she wants in my eyes but people do buy into it and it's scary to think if it's a thousand men and 24 hours i don't i don't even think that's impossible i don't think that happened if i'm honest but it got the world headlines where people bought into it and it's going to get her maybe another 50 ,000 subscribers just by this sort of act you know so she plays the game well like you says it's entrepreneurs yeah they're making money from people who want to feel part of something and she plays it to the best of advantage absolutely and you'll find that there's a lot of structure I mean I can't speak for you know for bunny blue I don't know um but you'll find there's a lot of structure behind the creators here you know don't forget there's consent there's legal documentation there's all kinds of stuff i cover it in the book what what people have to go through and what you'll often find is a lot of things that have been done are stunts that's the entrepreneurial side of them yeah it's good business you know and like i say be who you want to be as long as you're not harming anyone i couldn't agree more that's what it that's what it's about and and and the reason why i did the book wasn't to criticize the industry wasn't to glorify the industry, it was just to give people the facts, you know.

1:40:17And I've even made a statement that parents, you know, loved ones of people who are in the porn industry can read the book to actually get a better understanding of how it works and hopefully bridges the gap and gets, you know, communication moving. I was exposed to porn, I think, 10, 11 years old, very young. You know, when you're in schools and stuff, people talk about that stuff with the older kids are watching porn, it's like 10 minute previews. Then we used to have like the K's catalog when he's fucking girls in brazen pants like you were a seedy little pervert like back in the day like fucking hell but you're full of testosterone I don't know how kids know how to handle that kids should be out in nature they should be running about they should be burning up this testosterone to get it massive rises at six and seven years old you know young boys so we just don't know how to handle that so if you're giving porn you think that's your release but there's so much damage it can do as well like you say I'm not here to fucking ridicule everybody in the porn industry i've got friends in the porn industry male and female i've got guys who do it gay for pay who say they're straight i think that's strange as well but people will just do whatever they can for money to succeed and try and try and get by what sort of stats did you know what sort of stats stick out for you in the porn industry and for people who watch it the the amount the sheer number of people that watch it first of all um so there's a higher percentage of society that watch porn than we are led to believe and we can we can get those stats verified by the number of clicks that the sites take you know um so that was a big stat for me the other stat was how how much people actually made um and and how it was only a small percentage of people that actually made big money um the other thing was when i interviewed um women who worked in other lines of sex work how they made more money than what the average person on only fans was making and that sort of made me understand because initially when i was doing it i was thinking well why doesn't you know a woman who works in a brothel go and set up her OnlyFans account well that's because typically she would earn less money so those numbers were what what stood out also the the gap the um the difference that men got paid to to women you know is substantial um the things that some men not all men um but they put themselves through health-wise you know um having surgical implants and and things like that um but the biggest thing and and the thing that i think you know hopefully will get people talking is the sheer number of people that are watching it the way in which it's expanded now into because let's face it it's if you look at non-adult channels there are people promoting on there and making suggestions and my concern is then that that drives traffic for people to find out you know if you're young and you're seeing someone promoting something and it sort of seems a bit sexual so you're getting inquisitive so you start making it's not long before you find out you know and now you're on you're on a pornographic site so we need to be doing something you know um and the government have made a good move in terms of trying to restrict, you know, age access.

1:43:56That needs to improve. But we also, I think, as a society, need to be more open about it. We need to have, not necessarily, you know, hard regulation, but we need to have some kind of parameters around it, James. But a lot of the stuff on porn sites is abuse as well. I think over 80 % of videos out there is abuse, you know. So people are being abused and trafficked and underage. The only way you're going to stop that is if you have some form of legislation. There has to be some form of control. You know, there has to be some form of licensing to stop that, you know, that abuse. If you look at any industry before it had regulation, yeah, I was an alcoholic, I admit that, but if you look at any industry before it had regulation, it was pretty bad.

1:44:43So when you regulate something, it actually improves we might not think so but if you look at alcohol that's improved if we look at tobacco that's improved so regulation does help you know and if we can find a way of i believe in education you know if we can educate people that what you're seeing predominantly is not real that's got to be a good starting point and then we need to expand but it needs to be a global thing it needs to be where governments are working together because ultimately what we want to do is protect society like you say we don't want to stop consenting adults you know you know doing things but we do when it's affecting society in an adverse way mental health yeah absolutely definitely like i said an adult be who you want to be behind closed if you've got more openness about it james you can then put in the infrastructure to control the risk you can put in the support networks there's many guys who have said they've been addicted to porn and had to get help well you can make those things more widely available if if you've got some form of legislation to start with in the first place what did you see when you were interviewing the men and the females or any sort of trigger points because i always say this the majority if not most have been bullied or abused abused majority but was there any signs for you i didn't find that what i found was um i spoke to a couple of ladies that were involved in in the business or more sort of my age and had retired out of the industry and they spoke about you know sort of the abuse they've got but it was more of they felt pressured into doing stuff um and if you didn't then you wouldn't get the work you wouldn't get the call so there was a lot of that going on but what i kind of noticed with if you like the modern uh pornographic worker was that they felt that they were more in control off um and they didn't find it abusive so much they found it hard to make money

1:46:44so i think it's you know if that's anything to go by what it looks like is that the industry is certainly making steps to improve you know if you look at some of the big which i did take the time to research if you look at some of the big production houses for instance they have all the consent now they have chaperones um they have uh mental health and health and safety workers on site you know so there are certain parts of the porn industry moving into that but it's not universal james and until they make it universal that's the only way you're going to get consistency and be able to control it a bit better than it is now what about the bomb hooks yeah i mean i you know i i went to i went to the doctors and um i i'd said i kept seeing bombs and and and things like that and then one day i was convinced there was a bomb somewhere so and i had telephone lines at my house so i'd identified who i was and i thought there was a bomb um and that was it and and I thought nothing of it and then I thought right I better go and check myself so I went along to check at this point I wasn't diagnosed with psychosis at this point I didn't know so when I got to the hospital the doctor tried to uh detain me you know under the mental health I'd said look you need you need help and the police obviously had other ideas you know obviously they've got to do their job so he wanted to detain me the police wanted to take me so the police took me and then it was probably a few hours later James they came to me in the cell says okay look um we're going to uh NFA uh no further action um but we need you to go and get some help so I said okay and then about an hour later uh they came back and said no there's been a change um we're charging you so i said okay um and then uh basically i kind of long story short i spoke to my barrister and at the time she was saying to me norman you you're not understanding you can't you can probably be prosecuted for a malicious communication but you can't really be prosecuted for a bum hoax you've identified who you were you thought there was a bum there people who are doing a bum hoax, they hide.

1:49:09You know, you said where you live. You've got an illness. You need to plead not guilty. I couldn't understand her at the time, James, because I had psychosis. I laugh about it now. And I just had to say, look, it was my fault. So even though, you know, she told me to plead not guilty for it, I put my hands up and I just said to the court, look, it was my fault. Um, and then I was on remand at the time, um, and then when he got to trial, it had taken quite some time and I'd reached a halfway point. So the judge, you know, he let me go when he sentenced me at trial. So where did you get for him?

1:49:56Did you get a remand? Where were you? Well, what happened was, well, there's a bit of a story behind it because I had a gun range right, I set up a gun range because I enjoyed shooting and what happened was, this was an airsoft range James by the way, and what happened was one day the police thought, I'll tell the short version, the police thought the guns were illegal. They believed they were called what's called self-contained gas cartridges. So you know those little co2 canisters that go in the handle? They're perfectly illegal. That's what I had. Some officer who looked at the guns thought that that meant they were self-contained gas cartridges.

1:50:37They're not. Self-contained gas cartridges are where, it's in the words, you know, the air's in the cartridge, you know, so you need a gun with a firing pin. So that's what the police officer thought. He thought, he got them mixed up, basically. So I says, well, look, I got them from down the road. So you would think if they've sold me, you know, illegal guns, the police would raid them. You know, it was half an hour from the police station displaced us and I still had the invoices for them. So this is well no we've looked at the guns and they're illegal. So then my sister came and they told my solicitor the same thing so this is okay you got to go to court.

1:51:10So I went to court the next day um I had no criminal record so you know I thought obviously some mistake. It's a district judge and district judge says okay um well the police seem to think that you've got illegal guns you're saying illegal you've got your receipts there um okay i've i see no reason you can't be given bail and then the cps says he can't have bail because it's a section five firearms offense and he's got four so the judge was looking a few papers for a while and then eventually i got remanded in custody and that was it um now i got judging chambers because i was quite fortunate um so the crown court released me after a number of weeks, and funny enough, it was just before the riots, so that was another thing, I was lucky.

1:51:59And the saga went on, and it went on for two years, until eventually, the police, I went to court, and I said, look, Your Honor, this is where I got the guns from, the guns were legal, the police haven't been to see them, this is all a bit strange. So, the Crown Court judge said, right, let's have an independent report done on the guns at that point the police then came forward and says oh we found this and this was the report done about 16 days after my arrest which the guns were legal and you can buy them from any shop in the in the uk as long as you're 18 so they know they knew that all the way along so why they dragged it out for for almost two years i have absolutely no idea they're saying look you've got the right to go to the ilpc uh we've made a mistake it was a genuine oversight i don't get it um but yeah so obviously that came to court at the same time as the bum hoax um and the judge you know um he says okay look i appreciate your honesty this has been quashed i'm quashing these two out but i said look there was a transportation issue so i'll accept that so i accepted that and the judge says okay look i'm going to put it all together i'll give you it worked out of the two-year sentence but i'd done nine months and because of the um the firearms incident i was placed on a tag for that so obviously every two days on a tag is the equivalent to one day in prison so i'd gone over the halfway point and i left how well you in prison without the booze yeah it was um but when i first went in for the first few days i didn't even notice because I was, I was sobering up.

1:53:42But funny enough, I never really got, throughout my alcohol experience, I could probably name, you know, I could probably count on one hand, sorry, how many times I actually had withdrawal symptoms. It was never really an issue for me. And I don't know whether that's because I drank so much for such a long period of time, um, or whether it's just the way my body was, but I never got the shakes or had severe, you know, withdrawal symptoms. So, you know, in prison, I was, I was relatively okay, uh, missing the drink. And, you know, when I got out, it was the first thing I did. So, yeah. Ain't it mad though?

1:54:20You're clean. You're off. It's not the best place to get clean, but it's a place that you do get clean. Yeah. Because the only thing you've got in there is spice and, and smack, but it's, um, you can get hooch, but it's not, it's not that great. So what was the plans then when you got out of prison? Look, what year was this? oh oh years ago now i mean this was um this was 2016 um yeah so you were the height of your madness then you still got to fucking lose your shit yeah um so when i when i got out out of prison i was fairly quiet i was just still drinking a lot really um but i rebuilt things because you know i started a little small business so i was still working but still you know still still drinking a functioning addict yeah and then you know the the change was i decided look i've got to get into that routine so i started drinking every three months and i just stuck to it and then i started writing my book um and that required me to be sober quite a lot um so that was one of the things that saved me a lot really because it it made me focus my energy so my energy was going into the book and I was slowly but surely just moving away from from alcohol and here I am today but as I say it was a long long long journey yeah it's a mad story you know from the secret service and what your wife went through and in prison and in alcoholism and then interviewing porn stars like it's all it's all mad you know but how's your daily routine like now yeah it's good it's um I've got back into into a routine um because i just try to take one day you know at a time you know uh which is one of the reasons why i got into writing books because i needed something you almost feel a bit you almost feel a bit like a spare part you know when you've you've done a job that you sometimes feel that adrenaline you miss that job you know you just have this big void in your life you know and you need something to replace it and for me writing replaced it and slowly as I stuck as I also write for a charity so as I started writing more and more I started to get more referrals in for work you know for risk and then I got a number of crisis management companies contact me and ask me to work for them so i went in on a freelance basis um so it's it's i'm in a good place you know um i enjoy the writing so if you like the writing is my hobby instead of drinking i write and my work is back in risk management back in the secret service just not for government departments but you know for the commercial sector and i'm enjoying it yeah that's the main thing is trying to enjoy life is to try because sometimes we can look back and laugh i laugh at a lot of shit because i think i see the madness you know and it's madness isn't a bad thing it's just when people lose themselves it can be quite funny that we because i've lost myself for many years and i think oh man you were off your nuts and there's many stuff i've still haven't spoke about about myself in my life that was it goes very dark and deep you know stuff that I was involved in and being questioned over and like it's some mad shit but I will release a book and and and tell it one day but right now it's the laughter gets me through a lot of madness you know yeah I think you've got to laugh and you think fuck me man I was a mess there yeah I look back on some of the stuff and I'm thankful that I can laugh about it because thankfully no one was harmed in in my actions so I can laugh about it um and I just try not to um I take things seriously in my work because the nature of the work but I try not to take life as seriously as I as I was doing you know and I try and enjoy the moments more so now because I feel like I'm almost playing catch up because I lost 10 years of my life not really doing the things I should have been doing so now I feel like I want to live every moment you know and I've got that strict you know routine so my work is my work that works well I never feel like a drink anymore which I'm pleased about um and then I write books and you know I kind of have discovered what I enjoy about writing the books I don't like fiction I like facts so I like to investigate certain things and then I write about them you know my story in the secret service then about the porn industry maybe a book on politics is coming james possibly um you know who knows what's your biggest regret um ah i've got i've got you know sort of sort of so many really um but i try and instead of looking at them as regrets I try and look at them as learning curves.

1:59:28The one thing that stands out for me was perhaps...

1:59:42Not pushing harder, referring to my first wife here, when the lump was first discovered. I always sometimes reflect back on that and I think if I could have pushed the hospitals harder at the time, then maybe the situation would have been different. So with your wife, was it even cancerous, the lump? Yeah, the lump was, but it had been left so long, that's what caused the spread. Because he never cut it out? Well, there was a number of things. There was a delay originally with them saying it was a fibroadenoma. When she did have the biopsy, instead of, you know, performing a mastectomy and removing the breast, which is what he should have done, he did two wider incisions, and then he decided to do plastic surgery and replace her breasts and all that kind of stuff when it wasn't what was required.

2:00:41What was required was the breast needed to be removed for the best chance of survival. So did he tell her that so she could keep it? No, I mean she was the one who said look, she was the one pushing to get the lump cut out in the first place to have the biopsy. so she was pushing the hospital for that eventually they agreed to it when he he told us look it's cancer she she had experience of this because she had friends and family members so she said you know she wants to have a mastectomy she wants she knew what the best solution was um and he said no there's no need for that you know you're a young woman you know you want to keep your breasts you're going to keep your nipple and all this we'll just do an incision on the side and so he did that operation then he came back and said oh there's still some more tissue so we need to do another operation so we did another one and it was totally the wrong thing at that point and also all the chemotherapy got delayed because he was still messing around with surgery so what should have happened was the breast should have been removed from day one what was that is that his fetish or is that him just being a bad doctor like what is that i think you'll have to ask him i i i really i absolutely have no idea i've listened to some of the interviews that some of the women have done um and i've listened to their stories um and you know they've all got different stories to tell but what his motivation was i don't know i mean in the press there was some suggestion that you know it was financially orientated um because there were payments being made um i i don't know i think the police described him as i think it was the police did it so apologies if it wasn't um as as he wanting to play god with people's lives because a lot of the women were seeing him having their breasts removed then he was presenting them with all clear so obviously it's like he's saved their lives well they never had cancer in the first place so they've had their breasts removed for no reason that's fucked up man that's some harold shipmanship that yeah it's um yeah hopefully someone does her man in jail you know well when i went to you were funny enough we we we were in at the same time um and somebody said to me on the wing they says oh you've just missed him but he got a hard time when he when he was here um so i mean to be honest it doesn't make me feel any better you know um i just want you know i want closure on it you know i want them to turn around and say okay well this has gone on i mean the coroner's still going on and i've you know i'm still got court hearings james we're years down the line you know all i want them to do is say look we can close this off now this is what's happened and you know i can finally put put it to rest because i can't put it to rest i'm still getting letters and emails at the moment what's your plans for the future brother carry on writing you know carry on uh stay off the booze uh for one um write more books you know um i'm hoping to get to the stage where i'm i'm producing a book either once a year or once every two years i'm not quite sure what the next subject will be um and carry on doing what i do best which is risk management and helping those companies you know lay off their risk uh reduce risk and reduce exposure just before we finish up how can people everybody's risks will be different in life but what is the sort of main point for people and the one thing to bear in mind if i say to someone are you thinking about something someone will say yeah what stops you from doing something is normally the risk it's normally the risk in one form or another i don't want to i don't want to i don't want to get a mortgage because i'm scared i might lose my job and etc etc what you do is get education first so get the intelligence with the problem that is the risk get the intelligence first when you've got the intelligence you can make an informed decision because what you often find is when you get the intelligence it's totally different to what you actually think.

2:04:48In the same way as when we talked about the adult industry and you talked about a thousand men that you said were queuing up well actually the risk of sexually transmitted diseases is higher in a thousand men than it is for the creator. And that's understanding risk. Get the knowledge first, then you can understand what the risk is. Isn't it mad though, you know how your risk assessment in everybody else's life, but you never have of your own? No, it's always that thing. I don't know whether it's because you're too close to it. I think for me, it was always, I can find a way out of it. You know, that was my mentality.

2:05:31it doesn't matter I can find a way out of it and and you can't and I and I should have been you see I should have been looking at the bigger risk you know the you know sort of my family you know the friends that were still alive you know and I'm hoping one day you know we'll make up and you know life's too short you know um so that's what that's what I hope for but if I keep doing what I'm doing produce more books help more people word spreads I'm happy everybody's happy James for anybody watching brother that's in that life of struggle that can't get out that doesn't have like you said you had that risk assessment that you would always get out of and you did so fair play even though it's took you fucking all these years and hoax bombs and all the other madness but for anybody watching that's struggling what advice would you have for them i i i would say that if they've got someone they can speak to talk you'll you'll be amazed what talking will do okay and i would say that if they're struggling with things like alcohol with drugs you know as much as you think it might help go and see your gp because the first thing you need to do is control the risk because it's easy for me to say to someone stop drinking reduce it slowly over a period of a week to make sure you don't get withdrawal symptoms and stay focused but i don't know how severe that person could be because you know you can die if you if you just stop drinking you know if you're an alcoholic so i would say get professional help first but don't be you know don't be scared to talk and don't keep it you know within yourself and you need to realize that drink is just putting you into a full sense of security you're not in the real world and you're not your real self so I would say take time out for yourself find the right support it different things work for different people for me what worked was drinking every three months that might not work for other people but I would say talk first but talk to a medical professional first get their insight because you might need medication to stop it might not be as simple as just stopping once you've got the clearance then just drink slowly reduce it down each day reduce it down each week before you know it if you can go a month or two clear you might fall off the wagon and my advice to anyone who's who stops and they're doing really well and then they fall off james don't give up because you're falling off i fell off more times than i fell off my push bike as a kid you know but the important thing is you get back up and you try again and you keep trying and if you keep trying eventually you'll get there my brother would you like to finish up on anything else no james i just you know thanks for having me on your show it's it's been great and you know if anybody wants you know further information or if i can help in any way you know by all means you can reach me at normantaylorsra.com i'm always happy to do talks on alcohol and mental health for any of your charity organisations that are out there.

2:08:43Norman, listen, I wish you all the best in the future. Thank you. Keep up the good work, stay on the path and I look forward to seeing what you do. Excellent. Thank you. Cheers, Jim. Thanks.