UNIVERSITY NEWS LAST UPDATED : 17 APRIL
A BCU Alumna is catching fugitives in the latest series of Channel 4’s ‘Hunted’.
India Daley graduated with a BA (Hons) in Criminology and Security Studies in 2020 and has since worked her way up to become an Assistant Vice President in Intelligence Analysis at Barclays Bank.
But thanks to her degree, skills and experience, India has also landed a role on Channel 4’s hit series ‘Hunted’, which follows 12 ordinary people who go on the run but must remain undetected for three weeks in the hopes of winning of a share of £100,000. An expert team of ‘hunters’ use modern policing and security methods to find and capture the participants.
Led by Assistant Chief Constable of Cleveland Police, Lisa Theaker, Hunted HQ uses ‘powers of the state’ to find the fugitives through live CCTV, Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR), and public campaigns.
The latest series has recently finished on Channel 4, but will be followed by ‘Celebrity Hunted’ at a later date in aid of Stand Up 2 Cancer.
We caught up with India to learn more about her role on the show.
She said: “On the show, I’m an Intelligence Officer, so that means I’m responsible for things like CCTV, ANPR and cell site data to name a few. Myself and the other IOs on the show make sure all the hunters in HQ have what they need to carry out an effective investigation to track down the fugitives. All intel requests go in and out through the IO desk, so we are usually pretty busy.”
The latest series is India’s second time working at Hunted HQ. She was first involved in 2022, and again last year for the latest series.
“The show is as intense as it seems on TV; all the hunters are professionals in their respective fields, and we get very competitive. The near misses you see on TV are often where we would have caught the fugitive had we been there a few minutes earlier, so the thrill when we make a capture is exhilarating. For most captures though, it’s usually about five minutes of high fives and hugs, and then it’s straight back to trying to capture the rest.”
India was thrilled to become a huge part of the show after enjoying it on TV herself for many years before, and she has been able to use a huge range of skills that she picked up on her degree, and in her current role, on the series too.
She said: “I was a huge fan of the show long before I was involved, so it really does feel surreal to be a part of something you’ve spent years watching on TV. Most of my family and friends also watch the show so they were thrilled to hear I was going to be a part of it, although I didn’t escape the odd TV joke here and there.”
“Being able to focus under pressure has been a huge help during my time on the show, sometimes you have a dozen bits of intel coming in all at once and you need to be able to pick out that one crucial piece which is going to help you catch the fugitives.”
“As much as I wasn’t a fan of it at the time, I do think learning to do critical analysis in my exams was key to mastering this skill. The most transferable skill is teamwork. If you can’t work effectively with everyone else in the room, you have almost no chance of getting the job done. On Hunted, you have people from all walks of life who come together to work as a team almost instantly, and that takes a lot of practice in each individual's life to get right.”
In her role at Barclays Bank, India works in a sub-division of the Threat Intelligence function specifically looking at the bank’s intelligence requirements and collection assets.
She said: “My job includes working with all our intelligence teams, such as Geopolitical, Strategic, Insider Threat, Investigations and Cyber Threat, to ensure that there are no intelligence gaps which may pose a risk to the bank and its operations.
“In the last few years, I have been fortunate to have some fantastic career opportunities, including gaining my SIA Close Protection and Surveillance qualification and helping to extract foreign nationals from Ukraine at the start of the conflict. I’ve also been involved in several investigations being prosecuted in the UK courts and have been able to work on a brilliant project with South Yorkshire Police to help prevent organised crime and child exploitation.”
“In the future, I’d like to continue to use my knowledge and skills in intelligence and security to make a positive impact, whether that’s through disrupting criminal activity, or helping protect businesses risk, I think I’ll always be looking for ways to continually improve the industry.”
India, who is from Skipton in North Yorkshire, started her university journey in the USA, studying Psychology and Forensics for a year in California. But after realising that she wanted to specialise in Criminology, she chose BCU thanks to its wide-ranging modules and lectures from expert David Wilson.
She said: “I’m extremely fortunate that I had a great support network around me growing up who always helped me achieve my goals. When I made the decision to come back from the US to study in the UK, I did worry that I’d be too far behind the rest of my year group to catch up. Now I look back on that thought and I know that there’s always a way, no matter your age.
“I really enjoyed my time studying at BCU, and I loved that so many of my seminar leaders would hang around after class to talk more about anything you had questions about. I always felt prepared when I had exams or essays to write because the modules were so detailed and well explained, you really felt like you understood the material.”
“My studies at BCU were instrumental in helping me get to where I am now. Learning about human behaviour is a crucial skill for intelligence and surveillance. The critical analysis taught on my course has helped me tremendously when writing reports and thinking about things from a different perspective. My time at BCU also helped me practise my presentation and public speaking skills, something I find myself using more and more as my career develops.”