What a fantastic and inspirational person and a real pleasure to meet. Colin hit that nail on the head...
Brian Morgan, Senior Manager, Convergys
Colin MacLachlan is the SAS, star of Channel Four’s reality TV drama SAS: Who Dares Wins and Channel 5’s ‘Secrets of the SAS’. He is a public speaker with over 25 years of security and risk related experience.
HOSTAGE:
Colin Maclachlan was fortunate enough to have been involved in some of the most high profile missions of recent times. Only a handful of men have been involved in hostage negotiations and rescue and been a hostage themselves. Colin is one of them. He waded through stinking swamps in Sierra Leone to hunt down the West Side Boys. They were a guerrilla gang holding 11 British soldiers hostage. It was a mission so daring and dangerous they nicknamed it Operation Certain Death. Its real name was Operation Barras. The SAS recce teams secured the hostages’ building and neutralised any West Side Boys prior to the main assault arriving. They then secured the prison building before the rest of the unit arrived wiping out the terrorists in 2000.
CAPTURED:
Colin MacLachlan was also the first sniper on the scene when a hijacked Afghan flight with 180 passengers landed at Stansted Airport in the same year, sparking a stand-off that lasted 4 days. This was the longest standing hostage siege on UK soil to date. But just 4 years later, Colin found himself on the other side of a rescue mission. He was taken hostage in the Iraqi city of Basra. Blindfolded, battered and stripped naked, he felt a gun pressed to his head and heard them pull the trigger. This was his captors holding mock executions. Father-of-two Colin only survived long enough for British troops to rescue him because the terrorists who held him wanted to film his suffering in a propaganda execution video.
WHAT’S NEXT:
Colin MacLachlan left the SAS shortly after doing an exchange programme with both Delta Force and Seal Team 6 and after doing security consultancy for the Saudi Royal Family, A-List Celebrities and US Media Networks, Colin decided to fund himself through university where he attained a First Class MA (Hons.) in History from Edinburgh University and an M.Litt in Terrorism from St. Andrews University.
Colin is now involved in TV, Book, Radio and Video Games. He also does a lot with charity. Colin is an Ambassador for the Lee Rigby Foundation, Pilgrim Bandits and NSPCC among others. He also founded his own charity, Who Dares Cares which links and supports veterans as well as others that encounter stress. As well as local community issues, Colin writes and edits articles on military and terrorism. He also covers risk consultancy on a project basis.
BOOK:
In 2017 Colin MacLachlan SAS wrote an autobiography, The Pilgrim. The book was deemed so sensitive the government tried to block it from publication on security grounds. It is now available on Amazon.
Having had both an exciting and varied career, Colin is an excellent speaker on a wide variety of topics including Resilience, Teamwork, Leadership, Motivation and Performance. He is also an experienced presenter and host for events. He is based in South Queensferry Scotland.
To book Colin MacLachlan to speak at your next event, call SpeakOut on 0131 440 9226. Alternatively click on the Enquire Now button below.