PW-2-2026

Learning and Development

Gimborn PST Training By Gary Nightingale When Jake Weldon and I booked on to the PST training course at Gimborn Castle, we had no idea what to expect. U pon arrival at the airport we met Errol from Dublin and the three of us made our way to our home for the week, where we were met by Rob, Chris and Tim, the three instructors, together with a few other course members. Monday morning was spent with introductions and half a morning’s PowerPoint with motivational quotes from various sources, all advocating the same basic premise “You’ve gotta be in it to win it”.

In the afternoon we began with some first aid for serious trauma injuries, namely knife attacks where we did some realistic training by packing gauze in to watermelons. Sounds odd, but was actually quite effective for the consistency of an open wound. Day three was washed out somewhat from constant rain, so we blitzed through the rest of the course’s PowerPoints, which was tough going but informative. We did have the chance to look into Op Plato scenarios, where we took it in turns being trapped in a room and having to plan rushing the attacker to subdue them. We did this about a dozen times, and each time was a blast. Learning came out of each permutation, and the time flew by and was up there with one of the course highlights. Launching rubber bricks and foam bottles at each other was great fun. The next morning saw the cobwebs blown off with a warm up and recap of some striking and combos. We did some ground fighting and baton work to finish off the start of the morning and then moved on to drills, simulating perceptual distortion. We wore goggles that narrowed our vision and ear defenders to replicate the symptoms of an adrenaline dump. We then drilled sprinting to the lake and back and had to face a scenario of violence and medical emergency. Great fun and hugely realistic. After lunch we moved on to the five scenarios. I won’t spoil what we did but several of them were pretty close to the bone for realism and eliciting genuine fight or flight responses from the folk on the course. That afternoon was worth the time and money alone. The Thursday evening’s dinner was a bbq where the venue, rather than cook us dinner, just gave us the open bbq and the meat, we did the rest. There was ale, whiskey and cigars had around the flames. A truly wonderful bonding experience between officers from all over the world.

We took advantage of the weather after the morning coffee break, had a quick warm-up and began slapping seven bells out of each other. Well, out of our boxing focus mitts, anyway. After a morning of open hand strike drills we had lunch and then went straight back to it. By the end of day one, hands were throbbing and shoulders were sore. We had half a dozen German officers, including dog handler, firearms, some from an undercover unit, four officers from Cyprus, one from the MET and a French Customs and Immigration officer. By the end of the first day we were all well on the way to improving public relations. Day two, after a warm-up, we were back to slapping each other with more vigour than the 90s Tango advert! We then moved through other parts of the PST manual, which included throwing elbows, knees, kicks and take downs. We moved around partners, working with other officers from around the world, and put together combinations in staged attacks.

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POLICE WORLD Vol 71 No.2, 2026