Dr Ian Stanier

Twitter: @covert_intel

Twitter: @BUCSIS2

Biography

Dr Ian Stanier is a senior lecturer for the Buckingham Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies. He leads on a number of BA/MA modules including 1) Intelligence History, Tradecraft and Intelligence Machinery, 2) Media, Society Security and Cyberspace, 3) Analytical Simulation, 4) Security, Intelligence and Policy-making, 5) Covert Action and 6) Human Intelligence (HUMINT).

Dr Stanier is the Chair of the National Police Chief’s Council’s (NPCC) Intelligence Practice Research Consortium (IPRC), a body which seeks to encourage staff and students to undertake academic research in the area of intelligence policy and practice (Twitter: @npcciprc). He is a member of the NPCC Intelligence Portfolio and an academic advisor on the National Crime Agency’s HUMINT Academic Hub.

He organises the regular BUCSIS sponsored NPCC IPRC Keynote speaker events on Intelligence. The most recent have included conferences on Elicitation of Intelligence, Operational Ethics and serious organised crime and intelligence. These free events are aimed at the student and intelligence practitioner communities

Dr Stanier is a former senior police officer who has undertaken the roles of Source Handler, Controller and RIPA 2000 Authorising Officer. He was previously the head of the National CT HUMINT Unit at National Counter-Terrorism Policing Headquarters. During a thirty-two-year law enforcement career he has been responsible for the development of specialist intelligence in several operational arenas including serious crime, prisons, local community, public order events, domestic extremism and counter-terrorism.

He was an adviser to the UK Government’s Home Office on the review of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the primary legal provision for covert policing in the UK. He was instrumental in the 2012 review and development of the UK National Intelligence Model and associated practices and had previously edited the College of Policing’s Authorised Professional Practice on Intelligence Management. His doctorate focuses on UK information sharing pathologies and law enforcement intelligence failures between 2004 and 2013. He has designed bespoke intelligence related courses, delivering these in South-East Asia, Australia, the USA and Central America. He is aiding the International Institute for Justice & the Rule of Law (www.theiij.org) to promulgate and implement Global Counter-Terrorism Forum Good Practices across North and West Africa, the Middle East and Caribbean.(www.thegctf.org) He has also acted as an advisor on intelligence for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as part of their Intelligence Led Policing programme.

He is the founder and lead for Project Harpocrates, an initiative that seeks to encourage the recruitment, development and retention of ethnic minority officers and staff within UK and international overt and covert intelligence roles. This is achieved through the offer of scholarships, organising targeted conferences, and supporting relevant academic research.

Research Interest

His current research projects include the examination of intelligence elicitation techniques in a HUMINT context, the recruitment and motivation of covert human intelligence sources (CHIS – informants), the study of effective front line intelligence collection practices, the use of juvenile informants and various operational areas relevant to the effective and ethical use of CHIS.

PhD Supervision

1. PhD candidate (2022) – Understanding the extent and impact of Chinese Organised crime operating in the United Kingdom within the sex industry, human trafficking and modern slavery – Status: ongoing.
2. PhD candidate (2023) – Law Enforcement and Intelligence Reform in Anglophone West Africa -– Status: Proposal approved.

Publications

Journal article

• Stanier, I., Nunan, J., & May, B. (2024). An exploratory study into cell approaches for intelligence collection from detainees within an English Police Custody Suite. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice.
• Stanier I, Nunan.J. 2023 The motivation of UK Domestic Extremist Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Studies in Conflict and Terrorism)
• Stanier I, Nunan J. 2021. The Impact of COVID-19 on UK informant use and management Policing and Society, Volume 31, 2021 – Issue 5 512-529.
• Nunan J, Stanier I, Milne R, Shawyer A, Walsh D. 2020. Source Handler telephone interactions with covert human intelligence sources: An exploration of question types and intelligence yield Applied Cognitive Psychology, 34 :1473-1484
• Nunan J, Stanier I, Milne B, Shawyer A, Walsh D. 2020. Source handler’s perceptions of the interviewing process employed with Informants Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, 15 :244-262  DOI: 1080/13218719.2020.1784807
• Nunan J, Stanier I, Milne R, Shawyer A, Walsh D, May B. 2020. The Impact of Rapport on Intelligence Yield: Police Source Handler Telephone Interactions with Covert Human Intelligence Sources Nolan M. Psychiatry Psychology and Law. DOI: 1080/13218719.2020.1784807
• Nunan J, Stanier I, Milne R, Shawyer A, Walsh D. 2020. Eliciting human intelligence: police source handlers’ perceptions and experiences of rapport during covert human intelligence sources (CHIS) interactions Psychiatry Psychology and Law, Volume 27,2020, Issue 4.

Internet publication

• Nunan, J. Stanier, I. 2021. Intelligence Gathering During a Pandemic. CREST CRS 12
• Stanier I, Nunan J. 2021. Identifying informant motivation FIREPLACES framework. CREST CRS 11
• Stanier I, Nunan J. 2021. FIREPLACES and informant motivationCREST
• Dover R, Stanier I. 2021. Coming in from the Cold? The Contested Role of Juvenile Informants in Intelligence Operations Publisher Url
• Stanier I. 2020. The welcome rise and worrying fall in covert investigation

Book Chapters

• Nunan, J, Stanier. I. (in print for 2024) The Intelligence Mindset: A Framework for Gathering ACTIONABLE Intelligence in an Interviewing Context. In Bull, R., Milne R. Investigative Interviewing: Psychology and Practice (2^nd Edition)
• Stanier I, Nunan J. 2018. Reframing Intelligence Interviews: The Applicability of Psychological Research to HUMINT Elicitation in Griffiths A, Milne B. The Psychology of Criminal Investigation From Theory to Practice :207-225 Routledge 9781317267355
• Stanier I. 2016. Enhancing Intelligence-Led Policing: Law Enforcement’s Big Data Revolution Bunnik A, Cawley A, Mulqueen M, Zwitter A. Big Data Challenges Society, Security, Innovation and Ethics :97-113 Springer 9781349948857
• Stanier I. 2016. View Point: A practitioner’s perspective on the National Intelligence ModelIn Ratcliffe JH. Intelligence Led Policing :76-77