The Terrorist Hunters

The Terrorist Hunters

The front cover of The Terrorist Hunters
Author	Andy Hayman
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Autobiography
Publisher	Bantam Press
Publication date	July 2009
Pages	334
ISBN

The Terrorist Hunters (published 2009) is a controversial non-fiction book by former senior police officer Andy Hayman, co-written by Margaret Gilmore, about Hayman's role as head of the Metropolitan Police's Specialist Operations Division. The British Attorney General, Baroness Scotland QC, sought, and initially won, a High Court injunction against the publication of the book. The book was reported to have sold 2,500 pre-order copies before the injunction was issued.

The primary focus of The Terrorist Hunters is on the aftermath of the 7 July 2005 London bombings and the investigation it sparked as well as the role of the UK's security services, particularly the Met and MI5 in combating terrorism in the years after the attacks, though it also covers the investigation into the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.

The Terrorist Hunters is highly critical of the government's emergency committee, known as COBRA, of which Hayman was often a member, for spending "too much time discussing politics and not enough on urgent operational matters." Hayman describes COBRA in the book and in interviews with The Times as "cumbersome, bureaucratic and overly political."

Hayman also discusses Sir Ian Blair, former Met Commissioner, whom he described as a friend but of whom he later became highly critical in relation to a statement by the commissioner regarding the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian national who was mistakenly shot dead by CO19 officers on the London underground after being misidentified as a suicide bomber the day after the failed 21 July 2005 London bombings. He also questions whether his role and the role of other intelligence and emergency service officials attending the meetings were taken seriously enough and recalls an exchange with Patricia Hewitt, then Secretary of State for Health during a COBRA meeting in the immediate aftermath of the 7 July bombings, about the number of scenes at which the bombers had struck.