Founder brief

Connor Maleary

Eight years assessing intelligence in counter-terrorism policing, two before that in military intelligence. CM Intel exists because that discipline — grading what you know, separating it from what you think, and writing it so someone can act on it — is almost absent from commercial investigation work.

Background
2018 — present

Intelligence Assessor

Counter Terrorism Intelligence Management Unit

Reads incoming information, works out what it is worth, and writes the assessment that senior officers and partner agencies act on. Eight years of deciding what is solid enough to act on and what is not.

2016 — 2018

Military Intelligence Operator

British Army

Trained in collecting, analysing and reporting intelligence, specialising in getting information from people — interviewing and debriefing. Named best recruit on completion of training.

What that means in practice

He can tell you how confident to be

Most reports state findings flatly. This one tells you which findings are solid, which rest on a single source, and what would change the answer.

He has briefed people who had to act

Assessments written for senior officers and partner agencies, where being vague wastes their time and being over-confident is worse.

He has interviewed people for a living

Trained in interviewing and debriefing. Useful when an investigation needs someone spoken to properly rather than searched for online.

Qualifications, in plain terms

Intelligence Professionalisation Programme

The national standard for intelligence work in UK policing. Formally assessed, not a short course.

Defence Protective Security Practitioner

Qualified to survey a site and say what would actually make it harder to attack. Taught at the Defence Intelligence school.

Open-Source Intelligence Research

Formal training in finding and verifying information from publicly available sources — and in doing it lawfully.

The boundary
Said plainly, because it matters

Connor still works in counter-terrorism policing. That background is why CM Intel works the way it does. It is not a source of information.

No police, government or military system, database, document or contact is used for this work. Not for a lead, not for a check, not as a favour. Anything with a plausible connection to his official work is declined, and the decline is recorded.

If you need something that can only come from a police system, CM Intel is not able to get it and will tell you so rather than take the instruction.

Outside work

Director of Rugby for youth at Mistley Rugby Club, responsible for the standard of coaching for more than 160 children, and coach of the under-15s. It is the reason the first venues CM Intel worked with were clubs and schools — people who already knew him asked him to look at their premises.

The system he built to do this at volume.