With over 600 deployments to barricade sieges, kidnappings, extortions, suicide interventions, and cyberextortions, Matt is one of the most experienced crisis negotiators in the world.

Matt has spent his thirty-year police career across three UK police forces dealing with serious crime cases (homicide, organised crime, terrorism), with the last 17 years working as a negotiator and the Lead for the Hostage and Crisis Negotiation Unit at Greater Manchester Police. During his time in law enforcement Matt was a member of the UK Government's Crisis Group (COBR), advising on resolution of kidnapping cases of UK nationals abroad. He was also and a permanent member of the national Hostage and Crisis Negotiation Unit (HCNU) based in London and served as Course director for the UK national hostage negotiator and kidnap negotiator training courses. In this capacity he also delivered negotiation training and lectures for international law enforcement and military personnel in Canada, Turkey, Oman, Japan, Kenya and the Philippines.

Matt is a member of the International Negotiators Working Group (INWG) and an external instructor on kidnap negotiations at the United Nations, where he has delivered training for Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) staff in Hostage Incident Management (HIM), and for the Counter Terrorism Centre’s (UNCCT) Capacity Building Project on International Best Practices in Preventing and Addressing Kidnapping for Ransom (KFR), for government agencies of North, East and West Africa.

The specialised training that Matt himself has received as a student includes the National Hostage and Crisis Negotiation courses run by the FBI in Quantico and the Scotland Yard in Hendon, the National Terrorist Negotiation Course in London, and the MI6 Covert Operations Course (among many others).

Matt holds a master’s degree in criminal justice studies from Leicester University and his PhD thesis at Manchester Metropolitan University focused on the use of negotiation techniques in responding to marauding terrorist attacks.

(USA, 2017) At the FBI Training Academy shooting range in Quantico:


(Kenya 2015) A lecture in Nairobi as part of the UNCCT Capacity Building Project on International Best Practices in Preventing and Addressing Kidnapping for Ransom (KFR), delivered for government agencies in North, East and West Africa: