It was an honour and privilege to meet Colin Maclachlan today whom, I am delighted to announce, has very kindly accepted our invitation to deliver a guest speech for our Captain David Seath Memorial Fund Dolf Day, which will take place at Dalmahoy Hotel & Country Club on Friday 11 September 2020.
Learn more about our golf day #fundraising #event – https://bit.ly/2FW4xyI
Colin is a former SAS soldier with over 25 years of security and risk related experience, best known for appearing in Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins and Channel 5’s Secrets of the SAS. Colin was involved in some of the most high profile and daring SAS missions in recent time. Only a handful of men have been involved in hostage negotiations, hostage rescue and been a hostage themselves and Colin is one of them.
On one mission, Colin waded through swamps in Sierra Leone to hunt down the ‘West Side Boys‘, a guerrilla gang holding 11 British soldiers hostage. It was a mission so dangerous they nicknamed it ‘Operation Certain Death’ – it’s real name was Operation Barras. The SAS teams secured the hostages’ building and neutralised any West Side Boys.
Maclachlan was also the first sniper on the scene when a hijacked flight with 180 passengers landed at Stansted. Sparking a four-day stand-off, it was the longest standing hostage siege on UK soil to date. Four years later, Colin found himself on the other side of a rescue mission after he was taken hostage in Basra. Blindfolded, battered and stripped naked, he had a gun pressed to his head and the trigger pulled, as his captors held mock executions. Colin only survived long enough for British troops to rescue him because the terrorists wanted to film his suffering in a propaganda video before they executed him.
Colin left the SAS shortly after completing an exchange programme with Delta Force and Seal Team 6, and has since provided security consultancy for the Saudi Royal Family, Celebrities and US Media Networks.
Colin is also a published author, ambassador and public speaker who founded the charity ‘Who Dares Cares’ which works with people, from all walks of life, living with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.