Bill Hitchen: 'No legislation or operational orders will stop men and women doing what men and women do'

The allegation that a police personal protection officer had an affair with the wife of a public figure is unusual but not unique.

Because of the nature of the modern terrorist threat, protection officers are more and more associated with their "principal's" family. Some principals or their family treat their bodyguards as little more than hired help but others become very close. This is hardly surprising, given the hours spent in intimate proximity and they can become regarded as members of the family.

Some have been treated as an extra son and at least two have become sons-in-law after marrying the daughter of the house.

Protection officers are taught that relationships of a sexual nature are not tolerated but no amount of legislation or operational orders can ever totally eliminate the potential for men and women doing what men and women do.

All police personal protection officers, bodyguards, call them what you will, are volunteers. They are subjected to a barrage of physical and psychological tests and their aptitude for handling firearms in stressful situations is carefully assessed. Once selected they undergo training in tactics, firearms, advanced driving and first aid and our British officers are now regarded as among the best in the world.

Volunteers apply for a variety of reasons. They may associate a certain amount of glamour with the work or perhaps it is a simple desire for a change. Whatever the reason, just getting through the selection and training is a cause for celebration and there is great satisfaction upon joining a select band of professionals. It can, however, come at a cost.

No officer can say with any real degree of certainty what hours he, or she, will be working later today, let alone tomorrow. That is in the hands of the person they are protecting.

The hours are long and frequently boring. The upside of the long hours is that the pay, for those ranks who still receive overtime, is high and some officers become addicted to it. The downside includes the uncertainty of when one will get home, which takes its toll on family life. Many marriages do not survive and if a marriage is in any way fragile a posting to a close protection unit can be almost guaranteed to break it.

Often the principal is hard at work or play in a safe environment and the bodyguards have little to do but hang around and wait for hours upon end.

l Bill Hitchen was a senior officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, responsible for close protection operations in the Troubles.