Martin’s Law For Real-World Businesses

A law can change behaviour, but practice saves lives. We bring on former Police Scotland chief firearms instructor Scott Williamson to make Martin’s Law real for everyday operators, from boutique hotels and co-working hubs to universities, shopping centres, and major venues. Scott shares how to turn policy into clear actions your team can learn fast and repeat under pressure.

We start with why the law exists and what the Royal Assent and two-year implementation window mean for leaders making plans today. Scott breaks down the standard and enhanced tiers, then explains why sub-200 sites should still act: attackers target people, not paperwork. You’ll hear simple, high-impact steps to raise awareness, tighten basic security, and map invacuation and evacuation routes that actually work. We also talk about reputational risk and how early preparation protects trust with guests, staff, and neighbours.

From there, we dig into command training for executives. Paper plans fail without rehearsal, so Scott shows how tabletop drills and realistic exercises expose weak links and build confident decision-making. He outlines practical packages that fit different needs: Safety Shield for staff awareness, Venue Shield for complex sites, Edu Shield for schools and universities, Refresh Shield to keep knowledge current, and Recover Shield to support media handling and counselling after a shock. Throughout, the focus stays human: clear roles, calm communication, and no-blame learning that helps people perform when seconds matter.

If you manage a building, run events, or lead a team, this is your blueprint to prepare, protect, respond, and recover with purpose. Subscribe, share with a colleague who owns a venue or workspace, and leave a review telling us the first drill you’ll run this quarter.

Transcript

Host Intro And Guest Background

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Hello, welcome back to Studio King Street. My name is Neil Munday and I'm the host of the Sterling Business Podcast. Today I have a fantastic guest, Scott Williamson, from Scott Williamson Associates Training, to talk to the topic of Martin's Law. It will all become apparent what that is and why it's important to local businesses and businesses in general across Sterling and the Fourth Valley. So welcome to the podcast today, Scott. Thank you very much. Thanks for inviting me, Neil. Congratulations on all the awards you've been receiving. Thank you very much. Scott, so just a little bit of background and introduction to yourself. So are you a local guy? Where do you come from? Yeah. A little bit about yourself.

Policing Career And First-Day Dunblane

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Born and brought up in Stirling. Lived here for half a century or so. Recently moved out to Denny in the Falkirk area. I left school and became a travel agent, first of all. And throughout that career I enjoyed travelling and going around the world and different places. However, I thought about a career that was going to last me until I retired. So I eventually joined the police service, Central Scotland Police, the local police force. And I retired from Police Scotland about 20 months ago. During that time I performed various different roles within the police service. I was a community officer in Stirling and Bannettburn areas. I was a search officer searching various crime scenes. I worked at the Lockerbie trial in Holland at Camp Zeist doing the search facility stuff there. But for probably the vast part of my career, for about two-thirds, I was involved in armed policing and firearms. Okay. And when I retired, I was the chief firearms instructor for Police Scotland. Interestingly, it was something I never really wanted to get into. My first day as a police officer was the Dunblane tragedy. I'd just left college on the Friday and on the Wednesday morning I was at the primary school. So quite an introduction to policing didn't really enlighten me as to what was to come in the future, but I certainly didn't foresee a prolonged career in firearms. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Okay, so when we do get into talking about Martin's law and what that means in terms of legislation, that can be looped right back to your first day of the job, I guess, in terms of some of the horrific things that happened back then. So but we'll get we'll get into specifically what uh you know what this is about. Um so what 30-ish years in the in the police service? 28 and a half. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

I took the uh offer of uh I would say earlier retirement, but the government changed the pension scheme and stuff like that. So they changed the conditions, so it was it was the right time for me to leave. I would love to have done 30, however, 28 and a half years was the right time to go.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Okay. So you exited that career um thinking you were going into retirement, but you decided like a lot of people to start a business, right? So uh Scott Williamson Associates Training SWAT. That's it. Oh my god, okay. Um there's obviously a connection there. So uh so what is the business that you've set up and uh what is the what you know what was the origination of that?

From Retirement To Starting SWAT

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Okay, so uh basically a few months into retirement, probably about six months to be fair, um I became immensely bored and I felt that I was far too young to be retired, had far too many skill sets, and I and I enjoyed doing what I had been doing for the previous several years, which was overseeing all firearms training in the country, in particular command training. So the training of uh firearms commanders generally from Police Scotland but from other forces in the UK, and those courses were predominantly around leadership and command and decision making and then post-incident management. A vast part of the training we delivered was uh about uh we're saying Martin's law now, but it was about a counter-terrorism project called Run Hide Tell, which was the process to do should there be a marauding attack. Um so that's the line of business I saw myself going down. Uh I created my own company. I deliver marauding attack training and awareness. I also deliver decision-making leadership courses, post-incident management courses, and motivational talks for mental health issues within men in particular, but in general for anyone.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

So, in terms of the um the commercial side of who you'd be taking these services to, um what types of businesses, sectors, industries do you would you typically be talking to?

What Martin’s Law Means And Why

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Okay, well it's it's vast, it can be from a one-person sole trader business to a massive business. So, for instance, uh uh the background in Martin's Law, incidentally, is in May 2017 there was an attack at Manchester Arena at an Ariana Grande concert. And as a result of that attack, one of the victims was a chap called Martin Het. And his mum, who is called Fegan Murray, she at some point months after realised that not enough was being done at venues to protect the security of the public. So she instigated firstly a petition which was put to the government, and as a result of that petition, thankfully, there is now legislation coming into place. In April of this year, uh the legislation was granted royal assent, which means that it's it's been passed as a law. However, there's a two-year implementation period. So from April 25 to April 27, there's a period of time for the businesses throughout the UK to become aware of it to try and put in place some protective measures and for the regulator, who's the security industry authority, to get their things up and running to make sure that they've got the enough staff, uh enough people to deliver that training. So my business predominantly is focused on the awareness aspect of it. I'm not going to be any legislative part of it or policing it, so to speak. My first client, incidentally, was Blair Domin Safari Park, probably one of the best adventure wildlife parks in the UK. 10,000 visitors daily in the summer. And I worked uh in or I built a relationship with them. I like to say relationship instead of partnership because at the end of the day a partnership can be brought up, but our relationship's a lot stronger. So we've got a really good relationship, and I delivered training and awareness to their staff. I gave them some um comment and recommendations around their policies and procedures, around the security of their venue. It's quite a unique venue. So I can do a full sort of review of somebody's policy procedures, but the the big bit for me is staff awareness and people awareness. If you think about these types of attacks, they can happen anywhere. So as we've said before, ten miles up the road we had Dunblane, we've had other incidents throughout the UK uh throughout the years at pop concerts, we've had Whitehaven, an attack in Whitehaven, we've had an attack recently at a synagogue in Manchester, we've had an attack in shopping centres, and we've had an attack on a train. Glasgow Airport, there's another example. So these attacks can happen anywhere to anyone. The legislation um covers a tier that's a tiered approach. So the first or one of the tiers is the standard tier, which covers premises that have 200 to 799 people, and then there's the enhanced tier, which is 800 and above. So the bit that I look at is the bit underneath that, under 200. So any premises now and and we could we're talking here hotels, schools, shopping centres, religious places, all of which there are lots of in the Fort Valley area.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

But if you look at the attack at uh Borough Market in London several years ago, the people, the perpetrators of those attacks were walking about streets, going into small restaurants and pubs and trying to attack people there. I remember back at the time there was a sequence of things happening uh on Waterloo Bridge and in Borough Market, yeah. Of course. So it can happen anywhere to members of the public. So the awareness training I'm trying to bring to people is from, as I said, one person. I've had a client who is a family member, so it was a husband, wife, and kids. They were going on holiday. And if you think of that aspect of it, we've had attacks on beaches in Tunisia, Christmas market attacks in Europe. So I'm not here to put the fear up everyone and say this is going to happen, because in the UK we've got good security services and police who monitor all this and they prevent many attacks throughout the course of a year. What I'm here to do is to give people a bit of confidence about if it does unfortunately happen to them or they find themselves in that situation, they can take actions that are going to protect themselves and their family. But from a business perspective, for me, it's really important for a business to protect themselves, their staff, their visitors, and their reputation. Because if you have an attack like that on your premises in the future, how many people are wanting to go back there?

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Yeah. Yeah. So that I'm assuming that's going to be the core of your business going forward around this particular piece of legislation and the the awareness associated with that. But you you touched on a couple of other services and a couple of other kind of training um agendas that you that that that you could um you know that you that you could teach her on. So you want to talk a little bit about some of those other things?

SPEAKER_00 9:13

So a command training perspective is uh I've found from a bit of research and speaking to people that some large organisations, senior executives, they they may think they know how the business runs, but if an emergency or a crisis develops, they don't really know how it works or what happens, and a panic sets in. So it's great having procedures and policies in place. However, you really know, have to know how they work, and if if something goes wrong, how are you going to deal with it? And it's a big thing for a lot of senior executives to admit that they don't know how it works, but I would go into business and would look at those policy and procedures, we'd ask a few probing questions, and we will find out that they don't know how it works. So it's to give senior executive leaders an idea around how the policy works, what's expected of them, what their staff expect, but also to give them the confidence that if it does happen, they're not putting their jacket on and leaving the room and letting everyone else get on with it. They're going to take command of it and run it. Heavily used framework within the police service for senior commanders, and that's what I was teaching in the police latterly to deliver that sort of training. But for organisations out with law enforcement, it's really important for their leaders to to stand up and be able to manage that incident and give everybody a bit of confidence around it as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

And is all this classroom-delivered training that you would typically deliver, or do you have an online content element to what you do?

Tiers, Timelines, And Who’s Affected

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Everything's personal. I I find that interacting with people uh face to face is far better than doing anything online. I've been asked to do some online deliveries overseas. I I'm not really into that probably because I want to go overseas and get a trip from it. However, uh it's far more impactful face to face, and people can I can build a relationship then with people, and that's what I want to do. I want to progress the business by building a relationship where people trust what I'm telling them and what I can bring to their business.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Okay, so um no, all really, really interesting, and it's it's things that kind of for a lot of businesses would probably be on the I'll get to that pile if they're even aware of it in the first place, right? Um How quickly from here on in do you think businesses need to get their heads around what's going on and what legislation is coming down the track?

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Okay, well they've got the implementation periods up till April 27, at least. That's what it says. So it may be longer than that before it's implemented as law. So what I'm doing just now, the reason the business has been created and we're out delivering training just now is to try and get people prepared as early as possible. So prepare yourself, protect yourself, be able to respond and be able to recover. Now, if we can do that just now and embed some procedures in place when the security industry authorities start going round people and and uh inspecting premises, then there's a bit of confidence there that they've done what they need to do. And there are updates coming out on a frequent basis from the SIA. There's a new update due out in the new year about what's what's going on with it because it's changing a little bit all the time. What I can do is hopefully give the people the confidence that they may have procedures in place that are excellent and they might not need to do anything. The figures just now are for a standard tier premises over ten years, the cost involved in making people aware of training is£3,300. For an enhanced tier premises£800 and above, you're talking£52,000. So by us coming in and delivering some training just now, yeah, it it might be costing. So who would they typically pay those types of fees to? Those fees are predominantly going to be taken up by staff time, so businesses might have to give up the staff time. So you're talking about the cost the cost of delivering a training series to a large organization.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

A large organization of that's the amount of money that there should be.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

That's the figure from the SIA the myth busters. So for an enhanced tier premises, so you're talking large venues. Let's say there was a concert at Stirling Castle, and there's going to be well over 800 people there. So somebody will have to have responsibility for the protection of the public there. So in order to get there, they're saying over two uh ten years, fifty-two thousand, five thousand two hundred a year, staff time to get them trained and make them aware. The enhanced tier also is going to have in place things like CCTV being at the premises, evacuation or invacuation plans, whereas the standard tier doesn't go to to such lengths. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

And in terms of how you package your services then, um relatively new business, so obviously you're just starting to kind of build you know, build those uh product offers, if you like. So what how how are you packaging your services and going to market with those?

Case Studies And Staff Awareness

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Okay, so what what we've came up with is uh what's called a shield it's a shield protection image. So the the logo of Scott Williams and Associates training is a shield with three colours in the middle in a circle, and the colours represent peace, uh questions and harmony. That's the colours. Uh what what we're hoping to do, or what we want to do, is is to ensure that we're going to have a package called Safety Shield, for instance. So Safety Shield will be designed for, say, the staff in your business. We'll make all your staff aware of if a terrorist attack, or not just a terrorist attack, but if somebody went crazy in the hotel or somewhere, your staff would know what to do and how to keep everyone safe, themselves and the the guests. We've got one called Venue Shield, which would be for larger venues, so let's say Thistle Shopping Centre, the venue shield would look at their risk assessments, their procedures, and it would look at various aspects of training. Now there's a lot of companies and businesses in Stirling Thistle Marches, so how do we get all those people together to make sure that they all act well? Because it may be that if someone does something in thistle marches, the security staff might know what to do, but the hundred businesses might not know what to do. So how do we get that message out to all the people in that business? So that's that. We've got Edu Shield, which covers schools, colleges, universities. Fourth Valley has various colleges, university, lots of schools. So EduShield will cover that. We've got Recover Shield, which is if there is an event, we would come in and help the business recover from that. And we have uh media people who can deal with how we deal with the media in the event of an incident. We've also got a well-being counsellor who can help with staff well-being after the event. Um we've also got uh a member on the team who can do if you have a ultra-high net worth clients visiting your area, they can provide a protection package for them. Okay. So we've got a person who can put in place protection measures. Um I'm trying to think what else. Refresh shield is another one, which is every year, it's good to refresh all the staff knowledge because there's no point in giving them some awareness and training, and then a year down the line they totally forget it. So, as part of the the package as well, we can do a large-scale exercise. So, let's say, for example, Stirling University said, Yeah, we want you to deliver this training to all our staff, and we say, Yeah, that's great. Let's do three months' time, let's do an exercise, let's run a fake attack, we'll let the police, the ambulance, and fire service know, and we'll put in place some risk assessments and control measures, and we'll run an attack and let's simulate a simulated attack, let's see what everyone does. Now, from a client already, they've said, Oh, but we're gonna get found with our pants down, there's gonna be things happen. I said, That's the purpose of doing this event, because if that happens, we've done it in a safe environment and we'll learn from the mistake and we can fill the gap. So that that's that's probably a large-scale event exercise. But again, as I say, smaller businesses or perhaps a company who owns several businesses, we could do an event for them for all the different aspects of the company.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Right, okay. So I'm going to come back to the business, the the small businesses, or the venue shield, I think you called it. Yeah. Safety shield, venue shield. Yeah. Um but before I forget, because I'm I'm getting old and I do forget these things. So you talked about the recovery or the recover shield concept, um getting people back into business effectively once they've gone through a terrible situation like that. Um things like PTSD, right, which you hear a lot about in the in the in the services, the you know, the uh the blue light services, but also from a kind of uh you know forces point of view as well. Um do you do anything around um people's mental health specifically that are suffering from the likes of PTSD?

Command Training For Executives

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Yes. So we have a counsellor on board who, if people are needing counselling after the event, we can link the counsellor in and they'll do sessions with them. Uh I do uh talks about health and mental well-being, um, in and around so this could be pre-event, uh, in and around in particular men's mental health. I had a poor episode of that myself several years ago. Um so I do talks about how I disguised what I was going through from everybody that knew me, from family members, loved ones, and uh people that I was supervising, about 350 people at the time across the country, and nobody knew what was going on. So I do talks about that, about what managers and owners of businesses should look for in their staff because it's very difficult for people to admit that they're undergoing a period of poor mental health. It might be the manager or owner of the business that's undergoing that. Who do they speak to? Who looks after their health? So it's about people having the confidence and feeling safe to disclose that they've got that. So that's what that talks about. But in the event of an incident, we can also put a counsellor in place who'll deliver. I'm not saying solu well I'm saying solutions, or solutions, or ways, coping strategies to get over that. But at the end of the day, any business wants to look after their staff because they're the biggest aspect to the business staff. And if we don't have staff, we don't have any business. So let's look after the staff, get them back to work and support them as best as we can. We're not looking to portion any blame, we're looking to educate them, and perhaps if there's been an error, we're not looking to punish them, we're looking to educate them, make them better so it doesn't happen again. So we've got that in place as well for the recover phase. However, what I do say is I don't really want to be in the recover phase because that means something terrible's happened and we're going in to help businesses. Of course. If we can do the awareness training just now, the prepare and protect part, then everybody's going to be fully aware of that.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

No, it's good it's good to know. So what what I'm hearing is you do offer a full end-to-end service from you know trying to prevent all the way through to dealing with the aftermath in the event that that does happen. Yes. So if we go back to the business, I'm I'm taking my business as a good example. So, you know, in a part hotel, we have a business centre on the same site. Um in the height of summer, the hotel might be full. We might have 70, 80 guests in the hotel. Um we have very few staff members um within the business because we're very technology driven. Um I saw that. Uh given you know we're in a part hotel and we're self checking and things like that. But in the business centre, we have lots of businesses. So we could have the same number again of um business associates or colleagues working in the building at any one time. So, you know, we could be up to a hundred and twenty to a hundred and fifty people in the building. Yep. You know, at at at a peak time. Um if I take the business centre, so what I heard you saying, you you typically kind of build your services about, you know, around staff awareness and it's maybe, you know, scoped on the number of staff that you're training. Could you come into a business like mine, for example, and not only train the staff, which are very few few of, but also all of the local businesses and the staff within those businesses at the same time? 100%.

Delivery Style And Early Preparation

SPEAKER_00 20:34

So this this is an ideal venue, Neil. This is as you've shown me around today, it's a great concept. You've got lots of different organisations working in the building. Yeah, you've got guests. So you don't fall within the scope of the legislation because you're under 200. However, if someone came in here, which would be difficult because of the security measures you've got in place with CCTV and door entry, so that's great to see. But if somebody did get in here or you had a drunk guest in the room that kicked off, what is everybody doing? How does everybody know how to react to that? And that's the bit for me that there's there may be a small gap. There may be something comes out in the next 18 months before the legislation comes into effect. However, for me just now it's really important to hit from the sole trader to the 200 level of businesses to say, if this happens, here's what I would expect you to do, here's what the the counter-terrorism policing would expect you to do, and we can deliver that to them. At the end of the day, it's about keeping people safe and trying to minimize victims of an attack or somebody going crazy. Now, again, there's no information or intelligence to say this is going to happen. But if it does happen and a business knows about it and hasn't done anything, then reputationally the risk is enormous. So it wouldn't be a pro this is a probably an ideal venue. Business parks, Stirling Enterprise Park, Stirling University, the the the park up where the chambers are at Stirling University. A park owned by perhaps one person, but the responsible person for lots of businesses and lots of people. Again, legislation-wise, what it's saying is for the 200 and above, there'll be uh a sole responsibility, whether that is the company or an identified individual within the company. So I would think any company worth for salt will have an identified individual who will oversee all this and make sure that they're adhering to legislation. But for the smaller businesses that don't fall into the scope of legislation, I think it's it's it's probably important. It's for me, it's more of a CPD thing. What what a great thing to give your staff and your visitors the confidence and the trust that if something happens, this isn't just for when you're in here, it might be when you're out shopping with your family at the weekend or at a football match or at a concert like Ariana Grande or on holiday and something happens, you immediately start thinking, I remember what we were told about this, this is what we need to try and do. And and the guidance is there to try and keep people safe. So, yeah, for smaller businesses, probably for us just now, smaller businesses is great. I'm not going to knock back a big business. We didn't knock back Blair Drummond, and it was fantastic, and we hope to expand that further. But to build a relationship with smaller businesses, and whether that may be smaller businesses who come together and ask to receive the service as a group, that might be better. Instead of one person, let's have seven businesses together, and there's seven or something.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Well that that's perfect because what I was kind of leading with with the question there is um you know the business we have here, we've very we're very much seen as a community integrator, a community hub. So yes, we've got lots of businesses working with each other inside of the building, yeah, and um, you know, doing business with each other, but they're doing lots of businesses, uh lots of business with uh external businesses to this building um in and around the Stirling City Centre and we're in a perfect uh place effectively to pull those communities together. Now we can do that obviously, you know, from 45 King Street, but we've also got the ability to do that through the business improvement district.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Okay.

Costs, Compliance, And Practical Steps

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Um who have a whole theme around security and safety and securing the city centre for all of the other you know local businesses and uh the citizens uh you know in in in the city centre. So it's good to know that you know we could spread, you know, help spread the awareness of of of you know Martin's Law and some of the other kind of elements of what you guys could do. Um but then uh you know provide the forum to do that, but then for you to go off and speak to each individual business about their particular requirements and needs.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

So I think that's really important what you've said there is that if if a tragic event happens or an incident like this occurs, it's not going to be every man for themselves because if we're all walked in one room together trying to keep somebody out, we're working as a team. So that's why it's important for the smaller businesses to come together and help each other out. And your your premises here is a perfect example of where that could be implemented. Other large office spaces and office parks are as good as examples of that. It's amazing. I I forgot to say earlier that the awareness of Martin's Law, most people I speak to don't have a clue what it's about, which I think.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

I've heard of it about it on the news, but they don't actually know what it is.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

So a lot of people have heard about it. It's the protection terrorism, protection of the premises, protection of the public act, 2025 is the official term of it. But uh to say that people don't even know what that is about. So Martin's Law is how it's become more commonly known, which is quite correct, and and Fegan Murray's done a fantastic job getting the word out about that and she's constantly beating the drum about it. The the area or the reason I'm trying to start now is if something happens between now and when the law becomes law, if you like, and we know about this, what's the feeling going to be if we know about it and we've not done anything about it to keep everyone safe. So that's the reason I've started the business just now. That's the reason that we're trying to market it and get out around about people and raise the awareness of it. Um Yeah, the Security Industry Authority and Counterterrorism Policing can assist and help people planning and preparing for it all. But there's over 180,000 premises, was the recent figure in the UK that are going to need intervention by the Security Industry Authority, and there'll be over 10,000 events a year. So if you think of that, that's a lot of Well, that's events that will happen. That's events, so probably concerts, football matches, etcetera, etcetera. So 10,000 events and then 180,000 businesses. That's estimates from from the SIA just now. That's a lot. And with my background and with the background of the the other experts uh that I have working with me, we're in a good place where we've all recently left the service and we can impart expert knowledge that that people are able to use or ask questions.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

And that's pretty critical. I mean, I think from what you've said and your background, the pedigree of your career and and the history of of of of what you've done in the police force over 20 and a half years is is credible credibility enough as far as I'm concerned. So that that comes across. Um hopefully. And yeah, it does. And it gives you the right to go and have these conversations with uh businesses and venues because um you've lived and breathed for for a long, long time. So but fantastic. So really, really interesting topic. Uh thank you, Scott, for coming in uh to uh to talk to us on the podcast and wish you all the best. Anything we can do to help, and we'll continue to spread the word uh of of the great cause that you're you're putting out there and uh supporting businesses and venues. So thank you for your time. Thank you, Sneel. Thanks. Cheers.