Britain's Private War BBC Scotland Investigates

This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

'Well, I guess if you're reading this,

'I've bought it.

'I hope that my passing has not distressed any of you more than necessary,

'Whatever its manner, pain, torment, or happening.

'I would have endured it as a final test to my character and being.

'You made me the man I was,

'and the Parachute Regiment had merely defined me to everyone else.

'I am incredibly proud to have been your son.

'I love you all very much, and I'm so terribly sorry.'

The final words of a young man

killed in the line of duty.

He was at the bottom end of one of Britain's most powerful

and controversial industries.

Magazine!

The gun was put in his hand by G4S ArmorGroup.

Some of them should still be alive today.

You are a business, at the end of the day.

Without them, my embassy would have had to close.

What powers do you have?

We don't have powers.

'Tonight, Britain's private war.'

Woah! (BLEEP)

That was too (BLEEP) close!

The armed sector of the private security industry

is estimated to be worth, globally, as much as £400 billion.

Where there's conflict, there are contracts.

This is a programme about the outsourcing of war,

the deaths of former soldiers the public aren't told about,

and an unregulated industry

which is getting rich in all our names.

Our story begins with the last wishes of a young man.

His will, I opened three days after he was killed.

And there were a lot of poignant points in it.

And I think...

some of the things he wrote and said, I felt really quite proud of.

I think they confirmed my opinion of him as a person.

That person was Nic Crouch.

He grew up in a cliff-top house on the Norfolk coast

with his mother, Barbara, his father, Clive, and sister, Rebecca.

His ambition as a young boy, had always been to join the Army.

Not just any regiment in the Army, but the Parachute Regiment,

which he...

thought was the best regiment the British Army at the time.

I think he felt that it was a job he wanted to do,

and was very, very, very proud.

Nic served in the Paras for six years.

He then decided to leave and retrain as a private security contractor.

Nic was soon taken on by ArmorGroup,

a British private security company

which had contracts with the UK Government.

Those contracts were to protect Embassy staff

working in Afghanistan,

as well as visiting diplomats and ministers.

Work you may have thought was done by the military.

There was Tony Blair - he looked after them.

Then when he got posted to Helmand,

he was also assisting in the protection of Gordon Brown.

-These were Government contracts?

-Yes.

In his spare time, Nic also volunteered to work

in a hospital,

helping those on both sides, wounded by the fighting.

He and another colleague of his used to sort of help out,

doing some quite... not complicated surgical procedures,

but certainly things

like bullet extraction, and shrapnel extraction, stitching people up.

Nic then joined another British private security company.

It was called Aegis.

Aegis had contracts with the American Government

worth 293 million dollars,

over three years to aid reconstruction in Iraq.

Even though no longer a serving soldier, Nic felt he was still doing

his bit for Britain and its allies.

His job - to protect staff from the US Army Corps of Engineers,

who were building a hospital in Mosul, in the north.

I think he felt that health, a hospital -

I mean, they needed it - was a worthwhile thing to have done

and therefore, a worthwhile thing to protect the engineers.

I was a lovely, sunny day,

and I was hedge trimming with a large machine,

and a police car pulled up at the gate...

and his first question was,

"Are you the parents of Nicolas Crouch?"

And we knew straight away that it was, it was bad news.

Erm...

It was the 19th of July, 2010.

Nic had been escorting the army engineers to the hospital

when a man driving a truck packed with explosives

drove into the convoy.

Nic was killed instantly.

Written in Nic's will, beneath his final goodbyes to his family,

was a specific message he requested be made public

about the use of private security contractors.

"If I should be killed in Afghanistan or Iraq and the media is interested,

"I would like them to know how I and all the other former soldiers

"contributed to the great game.

"I seek no personal glory,

"but many good Paras and other ex-servicemen have died

"supporting these operations,

"with little or no acknowledgement to their bravery.

"It is widely accepted that without us

"the British and US forces couldn't operate."

The final wish of Nic Crouch is where our investigation begins.

He wanted the public to realise

the vital work private security contractors do for the country.

And the Government to acknowledge the industry that he worked for.

Yet it's an industry immersed in and controversy and secrecy.

And tonight, we find out why.

EXPLOSIONS

Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003.

The bloody finale to decades of civil oppression,

international sanctions and a succession of wars.

The battle was won and Saddam was gone.

The challenge now - to rebuild a broken country.

America announced an 18.4 billion dollar fund to rebuild Iraq.

We will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary.

This is one of the largest non-military budget requests

in American history.

It would mean rich pickings for the private security industry,

tasked with guarding those responsible for the reconstruction.

As the months progressed,

security companies, the majority of them British,

would come close to outnumbering the military.

For those who bagged a contract, the financial rewards were huge.

There were examples of small companies worth less than £50,000

at the end of the war in 2003,

one year later valued at 15 million.

Many doubled their turnover.

In 2003, the collective annual revenue of British security firms

totalled approximately £320 million.

But by the following year, this figure exceeded £1.8 billion.

If there was ever a 21st-century gold rush, this was it.

And that battle for lucrative contracts is just as fierce today.

But they come at a price.

The British military has always had a disproportionate number of Scots.

But when the financial floodgates opened,

thousands left the army to become private security contractors.

Peter was one of them.

He's asked for his identity to be hidden,

concerned he won't find work again after speaking out.

In the last nine years, he's done 17 tours in Iraq and Afghanistan

as a private contractor, protecting medical and food supply convoys,

escorting ground troops, and training soldiers.

Whilst some contracts were for private industry,

many were for essential British and American government work

I was a contractor to protect and run convoys

for the US Corps of Engineers,

but we were reconstructing the electricity from Basra to Baghdad.

You're over there as protection.

You're helping the US military,

and whatever companies that's there to do their job safely.

Make sure they get from A to B and don't die in-between.

The military couldn't operate without the likes of us

moving their equipment and running the convoys, etc.

Taking their personnel different places, protecting them,

they just couldn't do without us.

This is footage taken by Peter of a heavily protected convoy

travelling through southern Baghdad.

Most days he would take his camera with him.

He gave me the footage of his time there,

it was to be a revealing insight

into the often secretive world of private security.

He also gave me a copy of his diary.

'The movies are shit.

'The sound of gunfire is completely different.'

GUNSHOTS

GUNSHOTS

Wow! (BLEEP).

That was too (BLEEP) close.

'We're waiting to take an engineer from the Corps of Engineers

'to inspect the power lines.

'They're involved in the reconstruction of electricity

'to southern Iraq as Saddam ruined the power supply

'heading down to the Shia people in the South.

'I feel very vulnerable as we've no weapons yet.'

EXPLOSION

'There was no armoured vehicles even,

'they were soft-skin vehicles.

'We used them in convoys in local cars.'

You know, 4x4's? But no protection.

No body armour, nothing.

You were handed an AK, maybe about four magazines?

If you were lucky, you'd get a pistol and that was it.

Peter told me he thought the desperate scramble

by companies to win the big-money contracts

meant they often didn't have time

to ensure the men were properly equipped.

They were turning to local arms dealers to buy illegal weapons.

You could buy anything, it was like, assault rifles,

you had your AKs,

you had pistols...

ammunition, grenades,

RPG's...

it wasn't until the money was coming in for the contract that they'd say,

"OK, maybe you should get some body armour now.

"Maybe we should upgrade the weapons."

It's impossible to verify everything

Peter's telling me, but just before this interview,

two British private security contractors

were arrested for buying illegal weapons.

Although, in this case, no-one was saying

the private security company was to blame.

As well as inadequate equipment,

Peter levelled a more serious accusation at the industry

he's worked in for over nine years.

He told me the pressure for companies to fulfil contracts,

sometimes led missions to become more and more dangerous.

The contractors call them black runs,

because they know there's a high chance

they'll be attacked.

In this footage supplied by Peter,

we see a private security team being shot at by insurgents.

GUNSHOTS

Keep going! Keep going! Keep going!

You can see the bullets hit the side of the vehicles.

GUNSHOTS

The tyre comes of one of the cars.

It's too dangerous for them to stop.

This time, no one died,

others weren't so lucky.

A friend of mine was tasked to take

some equipment to a US military camp from Baghdad.

The locals said, you know,

we can't go here, it's far too dangerous.

But the company itself, you know, because of the contract...

the US apparently needed this equipment,

the company decided to go.

Halfway there, the team was...

completely surrounded and ambushed,

we were listening to it on the open mic.

My friend was screaming for back-up.

We could hear them all just dying, one by one.

'Til eventually...

my friend was killed, shot in the stomach.

If it was that dangerous and they knew it was that dangerous,

why did they go?

If your boss turns round to the contractors,

the companies, and says, "Look, we can't do this",

then it gives them a bad name, for a start.

In modern conflict, there's often little distinction made

between military and private security.

Contractors doing essential work for British and American armed forces

are often seen as legitimate targets and are losing lives.

Many may recall the horrific scenes from Fallujah

which were broadcast around the world.

Four mutilated and badly burned bodies

are dragged through the streets,

a baying mob then hangs them for the world to see.

Many thought they were soldiers, they were, in fact,

private security contractors, ambushed,

then brutally executed.

In a war zone, death is an accepted risk,

but as security companies seek to keep profits high,

is there a danger that that commercial pressure

will turn risk into recklessness?

Dundee-born Bob Sheperd served in the SAS for 20 years,

witnessing some of the world's bloodiest conflicts.

After leaving, he worked as a private security contractor

in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

As well as working on commercial contracts,

he was also paid by the British government

to help protect State-funded projects.

He was soon to discover the lengths some companies would go to

to keep their lucrative contracts.

Some of these companies, they know, which are the dangerous routes,

which are the less dangerous routes and I'll give you one example.

A logistical manager, who knew that I wasn't happy, he wasn't happy either

and he decided to show me what he had on his computer.

They were running convoys in Iraq

and they knew, because they had a colour code

what the chances were of certain convoys running certain routes

and certain convoys running other routes.

They had a convoy route

that they knew had an 80 percent chance

of being hit every time they went out.

This means some of the companies knew which routes

were the most dangerous for convoys.

I wanted to know how many security contractors

had died doing their job.

Military deaths are recorded officially by government,

but for dead private security contractors,

there's no such database.

Instead, various unofficial websites like this one

keep only partial lists.

We found 55 British deaths recorded in Iraq alone.

There's no list for Afghanistan.

The Foreign Office awards nearly all private security contracts

on behalf of the government.

They said they didn't keep a record of contractor fatalities,

instead relying on the companies to monitor incidents and report back.

Officially they could only tell us of seven deaths

which they'd been alerted to by the companies.

We know when a soldier dies, it's all over the newspapers, it's on the TV,

but we never know when security contractors die,

so you've got lads coming back in the bellies of commercial aircraft

being repatriated to the UK blindly.

They're hidden away, they're ferried off to a quiet family funeral

and the companies are telling them what a brave soul he was

and how great he was for the company.

Bob has his own theory

as to why the deaths of private security contractors

aren't made more public.

For the companies, it's bad for business.

For the government, it's hiding the true cost of these conflicts.

If the British taxpayers knew

the total numbers of people that had died

on behalf of British security companies,

in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, they would be shocked.

What Bob told me next

may go some way to explaining why it's so difficult

to get to the truth of what happens.

There've been incidences that I'm very privvy of,

where a convoy has been blown off the road

and people have been killed.

And, the convoy commander, if he or she is still alive,

will be the one that writes the post-operation report,

or the post-incident report.

That report is then taken away by the company and it's sanitised

to ensure that the company looks good.

Not only does the family of the deceased,

see the sanitised report, if indeed they see a report,

the people working for the company,

the contractors that are on other contracts around the country,

don't even get to see the real report,

they'll get to see the sanitised report,

so nobody learns from it.

I spoke to other contractors who told me similar stories

of incident reports being changed

and a Senate hearing in the States

heard whistleblowers tell of documents which contained lies.

Appalled by all that he witnessed,

Bob turned his back on the industry.

I am an angry man.

I'm bitterly disgusted

because there are some very decent young lads who I met,

ex-Paras, ex-Marines, ex-infantry, ex-Corps...

and they're dead now.

And I know, deep down, that some of them should still be alive today.

Every year the government spends millions

employing private security companies

to protect British projects around the world.

Now, that's taxpayers' money.

So, I want to know exactly how much it's costing us.

We asked the Foreign Office how much it spends.

Since 2003, it's paid out

£454 million

and that doesn't include further local contracts

awarded to security companies in the countries themselves.

Sir William Patey was Britain's ambassador in Afghanistan

until June of this year -

a post he also held in Sudan and Iraq.

He believes the work of private security companies

or PSCs, in areas like the Middle East, are vital.

-Hello, Sir William.

-Sam, hi.

-Nice to meet you.

-Welcome.

I hope the journey wasn't too arduous?

My embassy would have had to close without a PSC

or reduced to a minimum number and drawn troops away

from their duties in Helmand to protect us.

In August last year,

the headquarters of the British Council in Kabul

was attacked by insurgents. Sir William says

it was private security contractors who saved the lives of his staff.

They kept firing as the terrorists were coming through the gates.

While the other members were getting my staff to safety

and keeping them under cover until the special forces could come.

Without the private security companies,

the British government wouldn't be able to operate in Afghanistan

or the American government,

even the military rely on the private security companies

to provide security for convoys,

for static guarding, there aren't enough troops to do all of that.

So, if they had to do all of that,

they would be much less effective. It would be too expensive.

Therefore, you would be driven to PSCs

on the grounds of efficiency and effectiveness.

That's what it comes down to, money?

It's cheaper for the British government

to take in a PSC contractor rather then use the military?

Absolutely. I mean, the taxpayer should applaud that.

In a time of austerity,

you want to give the highest degree of security at the minimum cost.

Just days after the interview,

it's announced that the number of British troops

are to be cut by 20,000

over the next eight years.

We have to change and adapt

and that means letting go as well as building anew.

Thinking innovatively about how combat service support is provided,

using more systematically the skills available in the reserve

and from our contractors.

We're already relying heavily on private security.

Less military will mean an even greater reliance.

And more contracts for the companies,

means more boots needed on the ground.

The European Security Academy on the outskirts of Poznan in Poland.

It's the biggest security training centre outside the United States.

And it's where increasing numbers of Britain's latest recruits

to the world of armed private security come to train.

GUNSHOT

GUNSHOTS

John Geddes is former SAS.

After leaving the military,

he became a private security contractor.

He now runs one of Britain's largest training companies

and brings the students here to Poland as part of the course.

Around a fifth of those he trains come from Scotland.

Ronin Concepts is a broad spectrum security company.

Our main bread-and-butter work is close protection training

for the emerging industry at the moment.

Every month, dozens of recruits are trained by him.

Almost all are serving soldiers, looking to leave the forces

and get into private security.

The first thing we'll do is

five rounds from a standing position.

The bulk of the course takes place in Hereford,

but because of UK firearms legislation,

the final week is here in Poland,

where the students undergo intensive close protection weapons training.

It's a skill which requires a different mindset

than that of a soldier.

It's getting them out of the habit of an aggressive stance,

going into a combat role,

and giving them the mindset of being in a defensive situation

where the priority is to get your client

out of the ambush area and back home and safe.

The course these men are doing costs almost £4,000.

It's a lot of money for those on a soldier's wage.

I was to discover something rather surprising

about exactly who funds the students who come here to retrain.

Advance.

'The Army fund these guys to come and do this course right from day one.'

That is the individual's choice, to go for a course that covers

just executive protection, or a company like us that covers both.

The essence of this kind of training is, they go into civilian life,

into a direction which suits their psychology.

Nice tight formation. Advance.

Of all the students on John's course,

85% will have the bill paid for them by the government.

It's part of their resettlement programme

to prepare them for civilian life.

That's the right principle. Get into a diamond formation and move out.

It means that as the military sheds jobs

the government is actually funding the transfer of soldiers

into the private security sector.

OK, position.

Peter McCalla is former Polish special forces.

He's responsible for training the British students

on a wider range of weapons than they'd normally use in the military.

OK, yes.

Good.

OK, take the mag out.

OK, come.

It is very good. I am already scared!

Where have you been training?

-See where that round is?

-Yeah.

-Right in the centre.

What kind of money can you expect to earn in a day?

You are probably looking at... Depending on where you're working

and what part of the world, £150-£300 a day.

How does that compare to the military pay?

If you're a private soldier, you're probably on 16 or £17,000 a year,

so if you've got guys who have been five or six years in the military,

even as lance corporals, they're still going to make more money

doing hostile environment work in Afghanistan or Iraq.

-As private security contractors?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah. Without a doubt.

And that's why a lot of guys are getting out.

I'm in the Marines, serving at 45 Commando up in Arbroath.

I've been there eight years now, all my career.

Once I've done this course, got my license,

I'll going to try for early release, get out as quick as I can,

get out of the military and then hopefully get a good contract.

In only a matter of weeks, John's students

will be providing protection in some of the world's most hostile areas.

It's now time for the men to put into practice

what they've been taught.

Move right! Move right!

Back up! Back up!

Magazine!

Move.

Nice and tight, keep it tight.

Go, go, go, go!

Let's go.

God.

Oh, my God.

Just get my breath back.

That's awful.

Loud, so loud you can't concentrate on anything,

and I wasn't even firing the guns.

And the one thing you have to keep telling yourself is

that this is a training exercise and nobody is firing back.

The Government has to make 20,000 soldiers redundant.

So, paying for men like these to retrain is a clever move.

It means the military gets the job cuts it wants

and the private sector the Government relies on so heavily

gets an even larger pool of highly trained contractors.

But, despite all the training in the world,

in an industry with no statutory regulation

and massive commercial pressure,

will the lives of men like these be put at unnecessary risk?

OK, Sam, this is our International Operations Centre,

which monitors most of our operations around the world.

'Bill Freear runs the UK-based security company, Pilgrims Group.

'They are contracted by the Government to train

'all Foreign Office staff around the world,

'and they also provide protection overseas for media organisations,

'like the BBC.

'Yet, when it comes to bidding for the big-money protection contracts,

'it seems a solid reputation may not be enough.'

The frustrating thing for companies like Pilgrims

is that we have a 100% safety record - touch wood.

We've never had any injuries, we've never lost anybody,

clients or our own people.

And yet, when we are in competition

with other security companies who, quite honestly,

have a list as long as their arm of things that have gone wrong,

the questions come at us about our price,

not about the quality of service that we're offering,

and why we may be a little bit more expensive.

So we are, in almost all cases,

marked and judged on what price we are offering.

Are you ever asked, "How many have you lost?"

Is it really just down to price?

We include those facts in our tender bids,

but we are very rarely asked that question, if ever.

'Bill told me he wasn't prepared

'to compromise his company's reputation just to get a contract.'

Is it difficult to be principled in this industry?

Yes. If you want to survive and you want to be commercially successful,

-it's very difficult.

-To be principled?

-Yes.

And some of our competitors have grown much faster than us,

quadrupled in size in comparison to our growth,

and that's partly because of our principles

and because we won't cut corners.

It's all about the bottom line.

And that's all they're interested in,

that's all these big companies are interested in.

And I've heard them say that, in theatre,

where they've spoken over breakfast,

visiting the contracts that they have on the ground,

in their suits, saying it's all about the bottom line.

So, the contract and the profits to be made are everything?

Absolutely.

The allegation that profits are being put before lives

is shocking, to say the least.

But an unregulated industry means there's no forced accountability,

so I have no way of proving that what I'm hearing is true or not.

Surely, though, if some of these contracts are funded by taxpayers,

they should be open to a higher degree of public scrutiny.

Many of Britain's private security companies

are entirely professional.

But, sometimes, even the most reputable players

can succumb to commercial pressure.

'She's got away to a good start...'

'Who's going to get it? Chris Hoy gets the gold medal!'

The biggest security company in the world

is British firm, G4S.

You may have heard of them.

They're the company which ran into a spot of bother

for failing to deliver on its contract

to provide security for the London 2012 Olympics.

We've had a fantastic track record of service delivery

over many years, in many countries

but, clearly, this is not a good position to be in.

We feel we've got to make every endeavour

to deliver as well as we can on this contract.

It's a humiliating shambles, isn't it?

It's not where we'd want to be, that is certain.

It's a humiliating shambles for the company. Yes or no?

I cannot disagree with you.

Looking on the internet,

it's easy to see that G4S has a wide repertoire,

doing everything from prisoner transport to reading your gas meter.

It even has its own corporate song.

# Our mission is to maintain the peace

# But make no mistake

# We'll face the beast We'll back him down... #

A lucrative aspect of its multi-billion pound business

is providing armed protection in hostile environments,

such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

There, it also operates under the name ArmorGroup.

I managed to make contact with the man

who'd worked for G4S ArmorGroup as their country manager

for both Iraq and, then, Afghanistan.

-Bill?

-Hi, pleased to meet you.

He now lives abroad, but agreed to fly back to London to meet me.

He was responsible for ensuring

the contract was fulfilled on the ground.

First of all, the office in London needs to win the contract.

They then pass that back to the in-country team

to deliver the contract.

You were normally given a 28-day window to ramp up.

And what I mean by ramp up is to bring in all the manpower,

all the vehicles, all the resources,

everything that was required to run that contract,

so that 28 days later,

it would be fully operational.

Now, if it wasn't fully operational at any time,

the company would start losing an allowance every day.

They lose part of the contract. Money.

Which, on average, for one particular run,

could be 16,000 a day.

In those 28 days, the company also has to ensure

that every man being deployed is properly vetted.

Were there are occasions when these checks weren't able to be done

because of time constraints?

There were probably two or three occasions

when the men were still being vetted whilst on the ground.

Somebody may not come back from leave,

we may have a serious casualty, so we've got to replace

that ex-patriot operator as soon as possible.

The pressure is then on - do we lose the money,

or does London get the man out there straight away?

Bill told me the commercial pressures placed on them

were enormous.

You are a business, at the end of the day. It's like any business.

For the operators and managers on the ground,

you're constantly being given pressure to make money,

and make more money, and not cut corners,

but cut areas where you can manage

without extra men, without the extra equipment.

Did that sit comfortably with you?

My focus and priority has always been operations,

welfare and discipline, and looking after the operator on the ground.

And then, when they throw into the works as well... Well, yes...

Constantly, you've got to look for more profit, more margin.

But there are consequences?

Yes.

The consequences are that you end up doing far too many things

with far too few people.

And that is when mistakes can be made.

Were these mistakes, brought about

by massive commercial pressure to fulfil contracts,

responsible for the murders of two G4S contractors in Iraq?

The Borders town of Peebles.

Childhood home to Paul McGuigan, who grew up here with his family.

At the age of 19, he joined the Royal Marines.

He was proud to wear the uniform, and he was...

He just loved what he was doing.

He was always polishing his boots.

That was always the big joke, he was always polishing his boots.

The whole life, he thought it was incredible,

and he was so proud to be serving his country.

After seven years in the Marines,

Paul decided to retrain as a private security contractor.

Like Nick Crouch, he went on a course paid for by the Government

as part of his resettlement package.

Soon, he was out in Iraq, working on a Government contract.

He was happy to be where he was, helping to rebuild the country.

And the kids that were out there...

He loved the feeling that he was helping. He was in his element.

Another contractor who was out on the circuit

was former paratrooper Danny Fitzsimons.

Danny was the one who always, always wanted to be in the Army.

He used to send Eric letters, when he first went in the Army,

and some of the letters were fantastic.

"Dad, I'm doing this.

"In the training, I was first when we did the run

-"and I've done so many press ups." Didn't he?

-Yeah.

-He wanted to please them.

-Oh, yeah. Yeah.

On 9 August 2009,

Paul McGuigan's parents received a phone call from his fiancee.

She said, "There's been an accident.

"There's been an accident. Paul's dead."

And I said, "No, don't be silly. How could there be an accident?"

Just saying, "But there couldn't have been an accident.

"Paul wasn't working, he wasn't on duty."

Eric's phone went, with a message, and it just said,

"I think your Danny's in trouble in Iraq."

It was one of Danny's friends.

He didn't know exactly what had happened,

but he said, "I think he's shot somebody."

There had been some sort of altercation in the camp,

and that Paul and an Australian, Darren Hoare,

had been killed, shot and killed.

Well, he rang back a couple of minutes later and said to me,

"If you Google the Washington Post, it's in the Washington Post."

It said that there'd been a shooting in Iraq,

and it named Danny as having shot two men in Iraq.

Unbelievably, what the families had been told was true.

Just a few hours after picking up Danny Fitzsimons

from Baghdad airport, Paul McGuigan and his colleague were dead.

He was shot three times.

Twice in the chest.

And they weren't killer shots.

And then, a gun was put into his mouth

and he was shot in the mouth,

which severed his spinal cord.

A security guard who killed two colleagues in Baghdad

is due to find out today if he will face the death penalty.

Danny Fitzsimons has been sentenced to 20 years in an Iraqi prison.

He's the first Westerner to be put on trial in Iraq

since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Danny Fitzsimons killed two of his G4S colleagues.

He pulled the trigger. Of that, there's no doubt.

But there's a mountain of evidence about Fitzsimons

which should have set the alarm bells ringing for G4S

long before he was ever taken on.

Before joining G4S,

Danny Fitzsimons had already done four stints in Iraq

as a private security contractor.

But, he'd been sacked from the last job

after punching one of his clients.

Back home, he was also facing criminal charges of assault

and a firearms offence, and he already had convictions for

possessing illegal ammunition and robbery.

I managed to get hold of a psychiatric report

compiled for Fitzsimons' legal team for one of the criminal cases.

In it, it states Fitzsimons had been

administratively discharged from the Army

on psychological and disciplinary grounds.

He was also suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,

brought on by witnessing colleagues' deaths in Kosovo and Iraq.

So, not only was Fitzsimons still on bail,

not only was he supposed to be

under the supervision of probation officers,

but he was also under the care of a community psychiatric nurse.

Despite all of this readily available information,

from Army records,

from medical records,

from criminal background checks,

G4S still took him on.

But, that's not all.

We've discovered that G4S were sent warnings about Fitzsimons

in the days leading up to the killings.

What was weird at that particular time was that

a new chap had arrived. He'd gone into location,

straight into location in the Green Zone,

and in less than 36 hours, there'd been a shooting incident

where this particular individual

had shot two expats and killed them,

and the words used at the time were "executed".

As the information was coming through,

one of my very good operators came to me and said,

"I've got some confidential information.

"I can't speak to you, because you are my main manager.

"I need to speak to the country manager immediately."

The operator told the country manager

that he'd sent several anonymous e-mails to G4S in London,

alerting them to Fitzsimons' background.

We managed to track down the man who sent them.

He's still working in the Middle East,

and didn't want to be identified.

But he agreed to let me have the e-mails.

'I'm concerned that you've accepted to employ a violent criminal

'by the name of Danny Fitzsimons from Manchester.

'I am alarmed that he will shortly be allowed to handle a weapon

'and be exposed to members of the public.

'I'm speaking out because I feel

'that people should not be put at risk.'

Three days pass.

G4S fail to respond to the e-mail.

So concerned was he that his warning had gone unanswered,

that he decided to send a second one.

'I am disgusted that this individual will gain a job

'with such a large company.

'It will just fuel his lust for violence.

'Surely you must have some duty of care to not allow this to happen?

'This is not the type of thing you would wish

'G4S to have to account for in the media.'

Despite Danny Fitzsimons' deployment date fast approaching,

the e-mails remain unanswered.

He decides to send one last warning.

Fitzsimons was already due in Baghdad.

'Dear Sirs, having made you aware of the issues

'regarding the violent criminal Danny Fitzsimons,

'it has been noted that you have not taken my advice

'and still choose to employ him in a position of trust.

'I have told you that he remains a threat, and you have done nothing.'

But it was too late.

Paul McGuigan and Darren Hoare are shot dead by Danny Fitzsimons.

What if I told you that

G4S had been warned about Danny before they employed him,

and those warnings came in the form of several e-mails to the company?

And they still took him out there?

And they still, clearly, took him out there.

Well, I'd be so angry. I'd be absolutely distraught. I'd be...

Do you still have evidence for that? Yeah?

-We have his e-mails.

-Right.

They really need taken to task for that.

Why? Why not heed such a strong warning?

Why not listen to that warning?

Surely alarm bells should have started ringing there?

Now, we did ask G4S for an interview, but they declined.

They did, however, give us this statement.

Regarding the e-mail warnings, a spokesman told us...

It did not, however,

say whether anyone else in the company saw them.

Corinne and Jamie continue to mourn the death of their son, Paul.

Although the trigger was pulled by an Fitzsimons,

they know who they blame for the murder.

He fired the bullets, but...

..the gun was put in his hand by G4S ArmorGroup.

They put the gun in that man's hand.

The people who we feel are responsible,

who we hold responsible for putting that gun in Danny's hand are,

without a shadow of a doubt, G4S.

I want G4S to be charged with corporate manslaughter

and be held accountable...

..for what they did.

There is one very clear factor about the case of Danny Fitzsimons,

and that is the state of his mental health.

Now, the psychiatric reports point quite clearly

to him suffering from some kind of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

In an industry which relies heavily on former military,

where there is no mandatory vetting

but there's this pressure to fulfil contracts,

there is growing concern that more individuals like Fitzsimons

may be taken on.

A thought echoed in Peter's diary.

'I have constant nightmares and flashbacks.

'Anyone who says they can go to a war zone

'and come home the same person is a liar.

'Tomorrow, we're taking a colleague down to Basra,

'as his mental state is shot. He's had enough.

'One minute I'm sad and feel like crying,

'then filled with anger the next.'

When you looked around you on certain missions,

and you looked at the guys you were working alongside,

how many of them would you say had PTSD?

I think, towards the end of my five years out there,

yeah, there was quite a lot that had PTSD.

We had an incident within the company,

and we lost...a few guys.

Really close friends to us all at the time.

When they were killed,

the US Military decided to take us to...

..the church within the Green Zone

to speak about the incident,

and they gave us all sheets of paper.

They had questions on them about how we were feeling,

if you felt, you know...affected this one way or the other.

We just looked at the paper and we just sort of laughed.

Because most of us could tick practically every box.

The latest figures estimate

as many as one in five serving British soldiers

is suffering from PTSD.

Dr Christopher Kinsey, who's spent his entire academic career

studying the private security sector,

believes the condition is just as prevalent amongst contractors.

It's something that the industry has to deal with.

It's something the Government also needs to deal with.

This could be... I mean, it's really, I think,

potentially, a time bomb waiting to explode.

I think it's a very controversial industry

and I think the Government is aware of this,

and would prefer not to tackle some of the issues it should tackle.

-Such as?

-Well, I suppose, first of all,

openly acknowledging this industry exists and what it does,

rather than trying to keep everything out of sight.

And that, yes, it does need, for instance, regulation.

You know, we have self-regulation of the industry

that is being driven forward by the Foreign Office.

I think we need more than just self-regulation.

Despite spending almost half a billion pounds

on private security companies overseas in the last nine years,

the UK Government has always shied away

from formally regulating the industry.

Instead, it's opted for companies to regulate themselves,

and for a trade association to develop and maintain

the industry standards.

-Are you a regulatory body?

-We are not a regulatory body,

we are trade association,

but we are formally partnered with Government.

So, what powers do you have?

We don't have powers.

So, you're not a regulatory body and you don't have any powers?

Correct in that respect, yes.

The Security In Complex Environments Group

is a voluntary regulation system and so,

there is no formal requirement or statutory requirement, rather,

for companies to comply with those standards.

But what the UK Government and the SCEG is seeking to do

is ensure that those standards are recognised so widely

across client groups that it becomes a commercial imperative

for companies to comply with those standards.

I then asked him about

the allegations that I'd heard whilst making this programme.

If there are companies that are allowing their men and women to work

in a dangerous environment with the inadequate equipment,

forcing them to go on the black runs,

asking them to sanitise reports, one could argue

these aren't the kind of companies that are going to pay much attention

to your code of conduct.

Arguably, that could be correct.

Does that concern you?

I'm sure there will be some companies

who would continue not to uphold the best standards of the industry.

Of course, it concerns me a great deal.

But we're trying to address that problem.

What will you be able to do to those companies?

If they continue to operate underneath the radar, very little.

What the majority in the industry is keen to do is to ensure that

those industries... or those companies, rather,

who are behaving less professionally,

are identified and commercially disadvantaged.

At the moment, signing an international code of conduct

means nothing apart from the fact, for some, perhaps,

a wish to differentiate themselves in the marketplace.

In terms of substance of performance, it means nothing.

What will mean a great deal is when the standards are in place

and there is independent verification of those standards.

The international code of conduct was taken up

by certain security companies for the simple reason

that it would be madness not to.

Because if they do, and if they sign up for it,

it's another facade of legitimacy

-that they can give to potential clients.

-It means nothing?

It means nothing. It's a facade.

It doesn't help the contractors to do their job

and to have the backing of the companies whatsoever.

And what would help the contractors, in your mind,

-is proper external regulation?

-Totally. Totally.

In a statement, the Foreign Office said the voluntary system

would help to raise standards globally. It said it was...

In the last few weeks,

at least three more private security contractors have been killed,

that we know about.

For those still grieving, it's difficult news to take.

For anyone, the loss of a child...

..is deeply significant.

I liked the adult he'd become.

He was fun, he was thoughtful...

and I...

I didn't have to imagine...

..what he'd be like as my grown-up companion.

And, that, we will miss.

'I leave you with the words of two poets to remember me by,

'and I hope they will bring some comfort.

'The first is by Dylan Thomas,

'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.

'Do not go gentle into that good night.

'Old age should burn and rave at the close of day.

'Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'

'And you, my father, there on the sad height.

'Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

'Do not go gentle into that good night.

'Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'

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