The Girlfriends: Spotlight, E15: Jacquie Saves a Hostage

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Girlfriends: Spotlight

Episode 15: Jacquie Saves a Hostage
Date: February 23, 2026
Host: Anna Sinfield
Featured Guest: Jackie Davis
Production: iHeartPodcasts and Novel

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Main Theme & Purpose

In this action-packed episode of "The Girlfriends: Spotlight," host Anna Sinfield tells the inspiring and adrenaline-filled story of Jackie Davis, one of the UK’s first female bodyguards and a pioneer in the close protection and security industry. The main focus: Jackie’s daring mission to rescue a pregnant British woman held hostage in Pakistan, intertwined with her trailblazing journey through a male-dominated world, her undercover escapades, and her relentless drive for justice.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Jackie’s Early Years and Entry into Policing

• Tomboy Upbringing:
  Jackie describes her childhood as “probably a bit tomboyish, if I’m honest” [06:03], encouraged by her father to learn practical skills like car servicing and even building a firing range instead of owning a dollhouse [06:08-06:25].
• Breaking Career Norms:
  Growing up in 1960s Barnet, societal expectations for women were limited to nursing, teaching, or secretarial work. Jackie, however, wanted to be in the police since she was eight, despite never seeing a female officer [06:51].
• First Encounter with Female Police:
  Jackie’s first experience with female officers was when, at age 12, she and friends reported a flasher. The way the female officer questioned her was awkward and memorable:

  “Was it stiff like a ruler or floppy?” [07:31 – Jackie Davis]

• Entry Barriers:
  Women weren’t even allowed to wear trousers in the police force when Jackie joined in 1976. “We had to wear A-line skirts that were really tight, and stockings and suspenders.” [08:12]

Moving Into Private Security & The Circuit

• Joining ‘The Circuit’:
  Jackie left the police after realizing advancement was virtually impossible for women. She was recruited by someone who worked in both policing and private security, bringing her into the tight-knit, global “Circuit” [09:02].
• First Female Bodyguard Experience:
  Jackie was hired to protect the first wife of a Middle Eastern royal. Her presence confused the prince’s security team, who initially mistook her for a prostitute [09:58], requiring negotiation to clarify her role.
• Cultural Dynamics and Wealth:
  Jackie offers insight into the lives of royal wives, high-end shopping dramas, and the enormous wealth on display (“spending 40, 50, 000 per handbag and you’re standing there thinking, that pays my mortgage.” [11:34 – Jackie Davis])

Becoming a Trailblazer

• First Woman on the Course:
  Jackie attended and completed an intensive, six-week close protection training course as the only woman—abseiling cliffs, building rafts, learning unarmed combat, and relentless drills of security maneuvers [12:07-13:29].

  “I didn’t think abseiling or climbing a mountain would have anything to do with close protection...but move forward 10 years, I was really glad I’d had that training.” [13:03 – Jackie Davis]

Life on ‘The Circuit’

• Building Skills and Respect:
  Jackie started out at the bottom (residential security), endured the arduous shift work, but quickly built a reputation for being “fast, fearless, and very smart” [18:09].
• Navigating the Boys' Club:
  She became the go-to woman for agencies needing female operatives, learning to “infiltrate” the old boys’ network [18:23].
• Personality & Soft Skills:
  Jackie notes the importance of being well-rounded—even being able to discuss high finance and politics over lunch with ultra-wealthy clients. Table manners and sophistication are unexpectedly crucial [19:16-19:45].

Undercover Assignments & Bizarre Moments

• Unconventional Missions:
  Undercover work ranged from drugging men to steal documents to infiltrating a group of “ladies who lunch” believed wrongly to be involved in criminal activity [20:55-21:22].
• Memorable Anecdote:

  “You had to be naked and rolled into a carpet while they walked around you chanting...There was two problems with that. One, where was I going to hide the microphone so it could all be recorded?” [21:28 – Jackie Davis]

• Jackie reveals her work was sometimes so immersive she could forget her real name, especially when undercover for months at a time [23:31].

Personal Hardship and Returning to Police

• When Jackie’s mother dies unexpectedly, she must conceal her grief and maintain her cover, forcing her to question her lifestyle and leading to her first experience with grief counseling [23:42-25:16].
• She moves to a “conventional” police job wrangling football hooligans across Europe—a role that even leads to meeting her future husband, the captain of the ferry [25:27-26:17].

Training and Supporting Women in Security

• Mentoring Women:
  Jackie returns to private security and embraces training women leaving armed service—“come on, ladies, we can do this. It’s been a man’s world for so long.” [27:12-27:55]

International Hostage Rescue

• Pivot to Hostage Rescue:
  At a covert operations trade fair, Jackie meets a woman who introduces her to the world of private hostage rescues, leading to undercover jobs as far afield as Iceland, using movie production covers (“I was the locations manager for a new film that was going to be called Rambo on Ice.” [33:07 – Jackie Davis])
• Nature of Hostage Rescues:
  The operations are high risk—there’s no safe negotiation, frequently involving custody disputes, forced marriages, or trafficked children. The job demands extreme due diligence (“We only work for the good guys.” [35:03])

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Operation: Rescue in Pakistan (Main Story)

[35:42] - [43:58] The Hostage Rescue

Background and Planning

• Jackie is approached by a mother in Sheffield whose daughter ("Sarah") is being held captive by her husband’s family in Pakistan and is pregnant [35:42].
• British Consulate won’t assist. The mother remortgages her house to fund the rescue.
• The team surveils the location, discovers the schedule of the home, and identifies a 20-minute outdoor window [36:33-37:17].
• Due to monsoon season, their only exit is a grueling 80-mile, 14-hour mountain hike into India [37:17-37:29].

The Break-In

• Jackie sneaks into Sarah’s room, where she is chained to the bed, to reassure her:

  "Your mum sent me. We come back for you." [38:07 – Jackie Davis]

• An unexpected encounter with Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (who recognizes Jackie from the UK) triggers an immediate threat; a British contact calls and urges them to flee, as authorities are onto them [38:36-38:51].

Extraction

• The team rapidly changes the plan. They hire a taxi to ram through the villa gates, grab Sarah while she's in the garden, subdue the grandfather, and speed off, dodging police [38:51-40:09].
• They begin their trek over the mountains at night, being chased by the Pakistani army and, at one point, getting caught in crossfire between the army and Kashmiri rebels [40:24-40:50].

The Ordeal and Success

• Jackie describes Sarah’s incredible resilience after months of abuse, rape, and starvation [41:02].

  “She’s three months pregnant, she’s wearing flip-flop type sandals; she’s been raped, beaten, starved for months. And to me she was the heroine...she really pulled it together.” [41:02 – Jackie Davis]

• After three days, the group finally spies signs of India and descends into a town for safety [41:56].
• Jackie secures transport to the airport. There is a tense moment at the passport check before they are finally able to get Sarah on a flight to London [42:52].

Aftermath

• Anna asks Jackie about Sarah and her baby:

  “He’s now grown up. Yep, absolutely fine. They’re absolutely fine.” [43:11 – Jackie Davis]

• Jackie notes recovery doesn’t end with extraction—medical and psychological support is essential [43:31].

Jackie’s Reflection

• Jackie maintains calm during missions, but the danger catches up to her later:

  "Afterwards I'm like, somebody give me a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Because that could have gone really badly wrong. But you don't think about it at the time, you just do what you've gotta do." [43:58 – Jackie Davis]

• She explains her motivation is a sense of justice, especially opposing forced marriage and FGM:

  “My attitude is any child does not have the right to be stolen at 10 and sold into marriage...Wrong. Totally wrong. That’s why you do it.” [44:32 – Jackie Davis] “Justice. I believe in justice. Rather than emotional, I suppose.” [45:18 – Jackie Davis]

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Legacy and Mentoring

• Jackie now leads operations at Optimal Risk Group and mentors young recruits, especially women, to learn from her successes and mistakes [45:41].
• She is part of "Wise 13," a network of senior female security professionals who share intelligence, mentor others and support one another [46:04].
• She notes more women are entering the industry every year, but “still not enough” [46:47].

Advice for Aspiring Bodyguards

• Points out the lifestyle challenges: long absences from home, need for a strong support network, and intense fitness/training requirements [47:00].

  “Make sure you understand what the training entails and that includes fitness. Sort yourself out, go down the gym, go swimming, stop eating Jaffa Cakes and McDonald’s.” [47:00 – Jackie Davis]

• Soft skills are far more important than hard skills [47:38].
• Anna jokes about being only 4’11’’—Jackie reassures her, “You’d be brilliant. Once you’ve learned your unarmed combat, you’d be superb, I’m sure.” [47:56]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On sexism in police (1976):
  “We weren’t even allowed to wear trousers. We had to wear A-line skirts that were really tight, and stockings and suspenders.” [08:12 – Jackie Davis]
• On luxury as a bodyguard:
  “You become a hotel snob because you’re living in the hotel with them...please, no, don’t make me stay in the Savoy for six weeks...please let me go to Claridge’s.” [19:52 – Jackie Davis]
• On going undercover in the “ladies who lunch” group:
  “You had to be naked and rolled into a carpet while they walked around you chanting...I was trying so hard not to laugh, I really was.” [21:28 – Jackie Davis]
• On rescue adrenaline:
  “Afterwards I’m like, somebody give me a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Because that could have gone really badly wrong.” [43:58 – Jackie Davis]
• On motivation:
  “Justice. I believe in justice. That’s what it is.” [45:18 – Jackie Davis]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-------------|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:50 | Warning: Swearing and brief mention of sexual assault/violence | | 03:32 | Training scenario—early bodyguard simulation | | 06:03 | Jackie’s childhood and early ambitions | | 09:02 | Introduction to “The Circuit” | | 12:07 | Jackie’s close protection training experience | | 17:16 | Entry-level grind in security (residential team work) | | 18:23 | Navigating the boys’ club | | 20:34 | Beginning of undercover and covert work | | 21:22 | “Ladies who lunch” undercover story | | 23:42 | Jackie's mother’s death while undercover | | 25:27 | Policing football hooligans, meeting her husband | | 27:12 | Training and mentoring women in security | | 31:13 | Introduction to private hostage rescue, Rambo on Ice story | | 35:42-43:58 | Pakistan hostage rescue operation | | 45:41 | Jackie on teaching/mentoring in the industry | | 46:04 | The Wise 13 women’s network | | 47:00 | Advice for women entering security |

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Episode Tone

• Bracing, direct, and often dryly funny—Jackie is matter-of-fact about life-or-death situations, with Anna serving as a supportive, often amazed interviewer who draws out the personal and ethical stakes.
• Empowering and inspiring, with a strong undercurrent of solidarity for women breaking into dangerous or male-dominated industries.

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For Further Listening

• Previous episodes feature similarly bold women, including political prisoners, activists, and resistance fighters.
• The episode supports Womankind Worldwide, a women’s rights organization.

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This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in true crime, women in action, and stories where justice, skill, and sheer nerve save the day. Jackie Davis stands as a testament to the power of grit, adaptability, and a relentless sense of right and wrong in changing both individual lives and an entire industry.

Transcript

[Anna Sinfield]

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[Anna Sinfield]

Novel hey there, it's Anna. Just wanted to let you know that this episode includes some swearing and brief mention of sexual assault and violence. But it's also like an action packed James Bond movie with a woman right at the center holding the gun. So enjoy. Jackie is in the passenger seat of a 4x4 bumping along the narrow lanes of the Welsh countryside. In the back of the car sits a wealthy English woman, a vip. She's Jackie's responsibility.

[Jackie Davis]

One of the things that the VIP wanted to do was to go and buy a stables in Wales.

[Anna Sinfield]

Jackie is on high alert. She knows her VIP is a target for the Sons of Glendower, a Welsh nationalist paramilitary group.

[Jackie Davis]

I don't think they like English people buying properties.

[Anna Sinfield]

The advance party is feeding information back to Jackie. There's no sign of danger so far. The convoy pulls up to the stable yard. Jackie helps the VIP out of the car, moving in formation with the rest of the security team to escort her into the building.

[Jackie Davis]

Then all of a sudden we were surrounded by smoke bombs and loads of people trying to attack you. An ambush we then had to body cover and remove, which is where you throw yourself over them and get them into the back of the car and get out of the cars.

[Anna Sinfield]

Reverse manically out of the drive, tires screeching as they turn sharply onto the road and speed away, narrowly missing sniper shots coming from the bushes. Jackie looks in the rearview mirror. The masked attackers disappear from view. She can finally take a breath. She wonders, have I passed? Jackie is just 20 years old and this whole thing was a setup. She's just completed an intensive six week training program to prepare her for life as a bodyguard. She was the only woman on the course, but she knows she's now proved herself as capable as any any of the men. She's ready to take on anything. I'm Anna Sinfield and from the teams At Novel and iHeart podcasts, this is the Girlfriend Spotlight where we tell stories of women winning. Today, Jackie saves a hostage. Jackie Davis was a bit different from the other students at her all girls

[Jackie Davis]

school, probably a bit tomboyish, if I'm honest.

[Anna Sinfield]

And her father encouraged it.

[Jackie Davis]

Dad taught me how to service a car, you know, because his attitude was always, you need to know this stuff yourself. As I got older, he built me a firing range in the back garden, you know, where.

[Anna Sinfield]

Oh, wow.

[Jackie Davis]

Other people wanted Doll's House. I didn't.

[Anna Sinfield]

I would have wanted the firing range too. That sounds cool. Jackie was born and raised in Barnet on the northwestern edge of London. It's traditionally a conservative voting middle class area. Back then, in the 1960s, women were expected to go into nursing teaching or secretarial work and then to give up those jobs when they married. But Jackie had other ideas.

[Jackie Davis]

Since I was 8 years old, I wanted to go in the police force. I've no idea why, because nobody in my family were police. But that's what I wanted to do. But I never saw any female officers.

[Anna Sinfield]

Okay, so it's not like you got to know a female officer and you were like, okay, that's what I want to be.

[Jackie Davis]

No, I'll tell you the first time I met a female officer. I came out of school, I was 12 with a couple of my friends and there was a man sitting in a car masturbating. So I went straight into the phone box and dialed 999 and the police came along and they took us all to the police station and arrested him. And these two women police officers came in and the first thing she said to me was, was it stiff like a ruler or floppy?

[Anna Sinfield]

Oh, my God.

[Jackie Davis]

Ever forgot that? Never forgot it.

[Anna Sinfield]

That's a wild question to ask.

[Jackie Davis]

I know, but I just thought at the time, being not sure if I was a police officer, I'd ask that question in that way. And I guess that just stayed with me.

[Anna Sinfield]

And so maybe a part of you in the back of your mind thought, I can do a better job than this.

[Jackie Davis]

Yeah, I think so, probably.

[Anna Sinfield]

Jackie is incredibly ambitious and sets her sights on becoming the UK's first female police commissioner. She joins the police force aged 18.

[Jackie Davis]

I joined in 76, where we weren't even allowed to wear trousers. We had to wear a line, skirts that were really tight, and stockings and suspenders.

[Anna Sinfield]

Jackie soon realizes that her dreams of climbing the career ladder are hopeless. After nearly two years in the police, she's had enough. But it had been her dream job since she was 8 years old. What's she gonna do instead? And then out of nowhere, an opportunity comes her way.

[Jackie Davis]

In those days, police officers weren't allowed to have second jobs, but a lot of them did in the private security world. And so I was recruited by a detective sergeant who also worked in the private world,

[Anna Sinfield]

the Circuit, a worldwide network of freelance security professionals. Clients would come to the Circuit with a job, maybe they need a bodyguard or a private investigator. And the Circuit agents then reach out to their extensive network to find someone who has, let's just say, a very particular set of skills. And it turns out a gap in the market was opening up for women.

[Jackie Davis]

There was a lot of Middle east royalty was starting to come into London and of course, because of their culture, their females have to have female place protection operators.

[Anna Sinfield]

Jackie was being invited to moonlight as a bodyguard for the first wife of a Middle Eastern royal. The family was incredibly wealthy and there was a serious risk of kidnap. Her first day, Jackie turns up at 6:30am sharp to the five star InterContinental Hotel on Park Lane, London.

[Jackie Davis]

The Prince had arrived overnight and he'd brought his security with him from the Middle East. And I got out the lift and they'd never seen a female bodyguard before, so they automatically thought that I was a prostitute who had been paid for by the Prince to keep them amused. So 10 minutes of negotiating and getting somebody from my security side to come out and explain who I was. Yeah, that was interesting.

[Anna Sinfield]

The Shaker, the prince's wife, had booked out the whole top floor of the hotel. Jackie was part of a squad which would escort the Shaker and her children to the most exclusive shops in London.

[Jackie Davis]

The Prince and the Princess don't normally stay in the same hotel, so he might bring two or three wives with him and they'd all stay in different hotels and he certainly doesn't stay in one of them, he goes around and visits them. So each wife will have security.

[Anna Sinfield]

Gosh, that's an expensive entourage, isn't it?

[Jackie Davis]

Well, it is an expensive entourage. It also gets quite amusing because if you've got number one wife, you say to her, you know, where do you want to go today? And she'll go, I want to go to Selfridges. So when you're all in the cars and you're all in contact radio with all the other wives teams and you go, right, we're going to Selfridges. Number two wife will go, okay, I want to go to Harrods. Number one will pop up and go, no, I want to go to Harrods. So number two can't go go to Harrods. It's like a game.

[Anna Sinfield]

Well, and also you're just getting such an amazing view into, like how the Other half lives. Totally, you know?

[Jackie Davis]

Totally. I mean, if you think you can be looking after someone and you've had to make an appointment to go to a certain handbag shop and they're spending 40, 50, 000 per handbag and you're standing there thinking, that pays my mortgage. You know, you're buying a handbag. But it's their lifestyle, not yours.

[Anna Sinfield]

Jackie's friend from the circuit is impressed with her work.

[Jackie Davis]

I was given the opportunity as an experiment to go and be trained in close protection. So I took it. And that was an experience I'll never forget.

[Anna Sinfield]

Jackie was the only woman on the course, in fact, the first woman the instructors had ever trained. She went to join the seven men at a camp in the British countryside.

[Jackie Davis]

My training course included having to abseil down the side of a cliff. It included, you know, building a raft to get across a river, obviously unarmed combat, firearms, but of course you're not allowed to use firearms in this country. So a lot of drills, you have to do a lot of drills of m bussing and debussing clients, how to get a client out of a helicopter into the car, you know, who goes first up the steps of the airplane. A lot of surveillance, a lot of reconnaissance work, map reading, swimming, you know, diving off top boards, all sorts of things.

[Anna Sinfield]

My gosh. I mean, it sounds kind of like a really fun few days.

[Jackie Davis]

Yeah, but it was six weeks. Six weeks.

[Anna Sinfield]

Six weeks, okay. I wouldn't want to do it for six weeks.

[Jackie Davis]

I wouldn't call it fun, but I learned a lot, so that's the main thing. And I've got to be honest, I didn't think abseiling or climbing a mountain would have anything to do with close protection or anything I would do but move forward 10 years. I was really glad I'd had that training.

[Anna Sinfield]

The training camp changes Jackie's life forever. In the police, her options were severely limited. But on the circuit, she feels like there's nothing she can't do. And as it turns out, the term bodyguard is a huge understatement. The job involves so much more. After the break, Jackie goes undercover.

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[Anna Sinfield]

Aged just 20, Jackie Davis starts working on the circuit. A mysterious international network of professional security experts. Jackie is thrilled. This profession offers travel variety, danger. But like with most jobs, you don't get to do the really fun stuff straight away. You have to start at the bottom and work your way up.

[Jackie Davis]

You're not going to come out and be the personal protection officer of anybody. You're going to be on what we call rst, which is residential security team. So you're the person sitting in the hotel in the corridor for 12 hours counting the swells in the carpet. And probably if you ask anybody that's been in the industry five or six years, if you showed them a piece of carpet or a piece of artwork from a hotel, they'd tell you what hotel it came from.

[Anna Sinfield]

But Jackie builds a reputation. She's fast, fearless and very smart. She also has one distinction over pretty much everyone else on the circuit. She's a woman.

[Jackie Davis]

I discovered there was this boys club, you know, the old boys network and I learned to infiltrate it because I got passed around from agency to agency. Work wise, I hasten to add, because they needed a female for either close protection or surveillance.

[Anna Sinfield]

She quickly works her way up the ladder, honing her skills in close protection.

[Jackie Davis]

With ultra high net worth individuals and foreign royals, you've always got the chance of kidnap, stalking, blackmail, newspaper reporters and street crime. Street crime in London is horrendous, especially around Knightsbridge, Chelsea, all the areas that they would go shopping.

[Anna Sinfield]

Jackie also learns that clients require their bodyguards to be very well rounded individuals. For example, offering up some highbrow conversation.

[Jackie Davis]

The principal of a Fortune 100 company doesn't want to talk about the only way is Essex. You know, that was on last night. He wants to know about the FTSE and the cack and you know, what's

[Anna Sinfield]

going on politically and having good table

[Jackie Davis]

manners, you know, they've got to go Michelin starred restaurants with the principal. They've got to know the difference between a water and a wine glass. They've got to know when there's eight table settings, what, what, what knife and forks or what, you know.

[Anna Sinfield]

And there are some significant perks to following around the world's most wealthy individuals.

[Jackie Davis]

And you become a hotel snob because you're living in the hotel with them. And it's Claridge's or the Corinthia or any of those hotels. And before the Savoy was done up recently, people used to go, oh, please, no, don't make me stay in the Savoy for six weeks or however long, please let me go to Claridge.

[Anna Sinfield]

The jobs available on the circuit are hugely diverse. It's not just about providing close protection to high net worth individuals. It can be any kind of covert operation. Jackie discovers she is great at going undercover. She says it's all about getting to know your target and capitalising on their flaws.

[Jackie Davis]

Quite often it's either drink, sex or gambling. It's going to be one of those three, as a rule, makes that person tick. So you've got to play to their weakness. You gotta think on your feet, talk a complete, utter load of bullshit, honestly, and just go with what's happening in front of you.

[Anna Sinfield]

Jackie gets handed a lot of interesting opportunities. Some of the undercover work she does is challenging things that not everyone would agree with. While undercover, Jackie has infiltrated protest groups, she's bugged phones and she's even drugged a man so that she could steal his documents. I know. And then some of the jobs are just well beyond bizarre.

[Jackie Davis]

I went undercover inside a suspected paedophile group, which was a group of ladies that lunch from Belgravia. And I was asked, could I find out if paedophilia was involved in this? And I have to tell you, it was so far from that, it was unbelievable. So I joined these ladies. It was like a sect, if you like, a small sect of ladies. At lunch, they said I had to be reborn. This was quite interesting because you had to be naked and rolled into a carpet while they walked around you chanting and then they rolled you out of the carpet. Now, there was two problems with that. One, where was I going to hide the microphone so it could all be recorded? Of course. So we, yeah, so we ended up putting the microphone in my handbag, which I could put on a chair in this living room of this chanting going on in Chelsea. And I was rolled up in this carpet and honestly, I was trying so hard not to laugh, I really was. So when I was rolled out the carpet, I was really, really glad that I was face down because you've got these naked women chanting around you, you know, walking around and chanting. And I was just, I can't believe this is happening. But it had nothing to do with pedophilia. So I was able to put one of the husband's minds at rest, which was who we were there for.

[Anna Sinfield]

Wow. It was commissioned by her husband?

[Jackie Davis]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, these ladies, you know, some of them were MPs, wives and things like that. So I get why a couple of the husbands were really concerned about what was going on when they were at work. So, yeah, I was happy to put their minds at rest.

[Anna Sinfield]

By the mid-80s, Jackie has become consumed with work. She gets handed a lot and never turns anything down. She's got a reputation for getting results. Added to which she is still the only woman she knows of. With her training, Jackie works different undercover jobs for every 18 months straight, never coming up for air.

[Jackie Davis]

I'd worked undercover for so long, I couldn't have told you what my real name was.

[Anna Sinfield]

And then one day something happens that brings Jackie's real life back into sharp focus.

[Jackie Davis]

So I'd infiltrated a group of people that were stealing from their company, stealing hundreds of thousands. And I got a phone call from my handler saying my mum had been found dead at home, totally unexpectedly.

[Anna Sinfield]

Jackie's in the break room with her new colleagues, the one she's secretly surveilling, and they are watching her receive the news.

[Jackie Davis]

And I had to face these people when I put the phone down and pretend my sister had had an accident because as far as they were concerned, I didn't have any parents. You know, that's your story, your legend that you've gone in with. So I left. It was a Saturday morning, drove to my parents house and dealt with that. But I was back undercover on Monday just to keep the story up. And that was quite hard because I was still there for another couple of weeks before I could, you know, finally leave. That was tough, to be honest. I didn't think so at the time, but I did afterwards, you know, I was like, okay, maybe you need to go back into the police and be Jackie.

[Anna Sinfield]

Yeah. So you can actually grieve Jackie's loss as well.

[Jackie Davis]

Well, the funniest thing was I went to grief counseling, which I'd never been through. I've never been to counseling in my life. And it was the best thing I ever did, to be honest. Although the grief counselors, they were shocked at what I did for a living. You know, they were like, you're here. Well, yeah, because, you know, I'm human and I'm trying to deal with this.

[Anna Sinfield]

That's great. And so you were able to kind of actually go through the process of grieving for your mother and you got a conventional police job.

[Jackie Davis]

Yeah, sort of. Sort of dealing with football hooligans going to Europe. So I was constantly on ferries going from England to Germany, Holland, taking football hooligans.

[Anna Sinfield]

Oh, I guess that's not a conventional job.

[Jackie Davis]

Yeah, well, it was to me. You know, it was like, right, it's. This is fine because you're Talking about the 80s when football violence was really, really violent. And then I met my future husband. He was the captain of one of those ships.

[Anna Sinfield]

Not one of the football hooligans. I thought, that's where you're going.

[Jackie Davis]

No, the first time he saw me, I went up onto the bridge at midnight with two black eyes because they'd been a massive fight, as there always was. And he was like, oh, not used to having a woman on my bridge. I was like, can I have some ice?

[Anna Sinfield]

That's great. I mean, what a good meet. Cute.

[Jackie Davis]

Well, not quite like that. Me with two black eyes and ice on my face. Yeah, look lovely.

[Anna Sinfield]

I feel like it's about as romantic as I can imagine. It gets exactly.

[Matt Rogers or Bowen Yang]

Yeah.

[Jackie Davis]

It wasn't Titanic, let's put it that way.

[Anna Sinfield]

Jackie spends five years in this not so conventional police job, wrangling football hooligans and even managing to expose a drug smuggling ring in her downtime. But eventually she decides to quit her job on the high seas. The siren call of the circuit is too strong to resist.

[Jackie Davis]

I just thought, 1990, I'll go back and get some more women and start training some more women to come into my world. And that's what I started doing. I started encouraging females that were leaving the armed services, putting on training courses.

[Anna Sinfield]

One thing I was thinking is, for the longest time, you were the only woman in your work. And then obviously, you yourself managed to kind of build this girl gang around you. Did that make it easier for you to kind of relate to people?

[Jackie Davis]

I don't know, really, because. Because I've always gotten better with men than I have with women, funnily enough. But, you know, for the business, you can see a business need for more females. And so from a business point of view. Yes, you encourage that and train it. From the female point of view, I'm like, come on, ladies, you know, we can do this. It's been a man's world for so long.

[Anna Sinfield]

Next up, next up, Jackie adds another terrifyingly dangerous string to her bow. International hostage Rescue.

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[Anna Sinfield]

Got you. I've got you. Got you. I've got you. Jackie had tried her hand at most of the wide variety of jobs offered on the circuit. She had protected Middle Eastern royals. She'd gone undercover to investigate industrial espionage. She was by now pretty experienced in hand to hand combat. But there were still new avenues to pursue. One day, Jackie was in Baltimore at a covert operations trade fair. She had her own stand next to the men, selling cameras and dinghies and guns. She was once again in the minority.

[Jackie Davis]

There was 3,000 men and three women and across the room from this conference was another female. And we got talking and her husband had just come out of Delta Force, which is the American equivalent of our sas, and they'd set up a company together.

[Anna Sinfield]

The couple's company specialized in hostage rescues. I never heard of anything like this until I spoke to Jackie. But it is exactly how it sounds. A private company that you can pay to get someone back who's been kidnapped. The company doesn't work on behalf of the police or the government. They work for their client. Jackie is more than a little intrigued. She exchanges her details with her new contact.

[Jackie Davis]

And she rang me a couple of months later and said, fancy doing an undercover job in Iceland for a hostage rescue. I was like, yeah, happy to do that. So flew to Iceland and pretended I was the locations manager for a new film that was going to be called Rambo on Ice. And I infiltrated the people who got the kids.

[Anna Sinfield]

Oh, my God.

[Jackie Davis]

That's how it started.

[Anna Sinfield]

The job involves seriously high stakes and extreme risk. The hostage might be held captive by an abusive spouse, an organised crime gang or even a terrorist group. These are really serious operations and can involve bribes, break ins, high speed boat chases or escape by helicopter.

[Jackie Davis]

There's no peaceful negotiation because if somebody has kidnapped somebody, and quite often it is a parental abduction or a child that's been sold by a parent over here into a foreign family over there and vice versa. It happens here too, by the way. There's no negotiating going on. The level of risk involved is if you're at court in one of those countries, you're going to prison because they'll say it's kidnapping.

[Anna Sinfield]

How is it different from kidnapping? Jackie says that when they're rescuing children, it's always in order to return a child to their rightful place, to an appropriate guardian and their home country. She sees it as upholding the international treaty which protects children from kidnap, no

[Jackie Davis]

matter where you're going in the world to rescue a hostage. I mean, you've got all these countries that are supposed to belong to the hate convention. Most European countries belong to it, America belongs to it, and it says if your child is stolen by an abducting parent and taken to a foreign country, the police in that country will bring your child back. That's what the hate convention is. But it doesn't always work. Even though countries like Greece belong to it, they still have this misogynistic attitude of the child belongs to the father if it's him that's stolen the child and the police will do nothing to help get it back.

[Anna Sinfield]

How do you know that? You're always, you know, working for the right side.

[Jackie Davis]

You don't take any client on until you've done your due diligence. And there's many clients we've turned down because of it. You know, you can't work out where their money's come from. So are they from an ocg, an organised crime group? So we only work for the good guys.

[Anna Sinfield]

If I've learned anything from reporting on true crime, it's that figuring out who the good guy is isn't always easy. But when Jackie tells certain stories, it feels really easy to know who to root for. Jackie's most memorable hostage rescue starts in the lobby of a hotel in Sheffield in the north of England. She was there to meet a woman who was fearing for her daughter's safety.

[Jackie Davis]

This young girl married a chap that she met over here at university and, you know, he got, oh, you know, you need to come home to Pakistan, meet my family, you know, we'll be there. Six weeks and six months later, her mum still couldn't contact her. And Mum had had a note pushed through the door and it said, mum, please help me. I'm being held captive and I'm pregnant. And what had happened was she'd managed to smuggle a note to the next door neighbour who she knew was going to the uk. And then Mum got put in contact with me.

[Anna Sinfield]

In Jackie's experience, the British Consulate in Pakistan doesn't get involved in domestic affairs. They won't be able to help, but Jackie can. The mother remortgages her house to fund the rescue.

[Jackie Davis]

We pulled the team together, went out there to Pakistan, did a lot of surveillance and some undercover stuff.

[Anna Sinfield]

The girl who Jackie calls Sarah is being held in a house in the suburbs of Islamabad. Over a few days, Jackie and Her team carry out reconnaissance. They learn that the husband is out between 9am and mid afternoon and gone again from 8pm until very late. Each time, Sarah is left behind with two servants and the husband's elderly grandfather. Every afternoon, Sarah is allowed out into the garden for 20 minutes. Jackie knows this is their window of opportunity to get in and grab her. But then what?

[Jackie Davis]

We realized it was monsoon season, so we couldn't go out by boat, can't go to an airport. The only way we're gonna get out of here is if we go across the mountain to India.

[Anna Sinfield]

It will be a 14 hour hike covering 80 miles. But once they're in India, they'll be out of the reach of Pakistan law enforcement. Sarah can collect a new British passport and fly home. That's the plan anyway. Jackie's team buys rations and plants the supplies along their expected exit route. Sarah doesn't yet know any of this is happening and Jackie needs to make sure that she cooperates when the rescue comes. One night, Jackie gets a taxi up to the house where Sarah is being held. She scales the wall.

[Jackie Davis]

I climbed through the window into her room where she was literally chained to a bedstead. Woke her up. You know you've got somebody standing over you dressed in black, wearing a balaclava. Obviously she was worried. And I'm like, no, your mum sent me. We come back for you. I just want you to know, you know, we will come back for you.

[Anna Sinfield]

Jackie and her team have a plan. They just need a few days to prepare. But then something happens that means they need to move.

[Jackie Davis]

Now, we were in the Marriott in Islamabad and who should walk in but Benazir Bhutto and her entourage.

[Anna Sinfield]

At the time, Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister of Pakistan and she knew

[Jackie Davis]

me from the UK a couple of years before and she guessed why I was there. And the next thing, I got a phone call from somebody very British that said, get out. They know why you're there. I think it's come from the embassy, but I don't know who the calls come from, but they're British, so let's go with it. So I went along the corridor, banging on the Blake stores, going, this is what I've just been told. But the team and I decided we weren't leaving without Sarah, the hostage. So we hired a taxi. We paid him $200 to ram the gates on the villa. The grandfather had allowed her into the garden. So she was in the garden, so I grabbed her. My colleagues took care of him so he couldn't get in our way, threw her in the car and then we went on this mad chase trying to get away from central Islamabad and we could hear all the police cars going the other way. My adrenaline was really going when we were being chased. You know, you're down back streets and eventually you're now at the bottom of the mountain and there's only one way to go and that's on foot. And so off we went.

[Anna Sinfield]

Jackie and her team and a three month pregnant Sarah hike through the hills, walking at night and sleeping in the day. Their sights are set on India. Once they get there, they'll be safe.

[Jackie Davis]

We knew we were being chased by the Pakistan army, who luckily don't look after their weapons, can't shoot straight, so we were able to get a good head start. But one day there was shooting coming both ways at us, but we realized they weren't actually shooting at us, it was the army shooting at the Kashmiri rebels. So we were just caught in the crossfire, but kept our heads down.

[Anna Sinfield]

Jackie and her guys are trained professionals. They are physically and psychologically prepared for an endurance test like this. But Sarah is totally ill equipped.

[Jackie Davis]

She's three months pregnant, she's wearing flip flop type sandals, she's been raped, beaten, starved from months. And to me she was the heroine because to walk for three days up that mountain to get shot at and all I could think of was when we were hiding in like a cave, there used to be an advert for Esso petrol and it was the tiger. And all I could see in my head was this tiger coming, coming down this mountain. He wasn't there but you know, it was like, oh my God, they've got tigers. Snakes, hate snakes. You know, you've got to think about that, but not let the hostage know that's what you're worrying about. And you've just got to be, you know, strong for them. But by God, she was strong. You know, she really pulled it together.

[Anna Sinfield]

Finally they make it to their destination.

[Jackie Davis]

And then I think it was the fourth morning, got up, heard these bells ringing, walked over to a ridge and when I looked down there was telegraph poles and on the telegraph poles it said, read the Times of India. So we then scrambled down into the town and got a bed and breakfast sort of place. My greatest thing though was having walked for those three days, having a shower, you know, because you're filthy and just stripping off and standing under a shower was rather lovely.

[Anna Sinfield]

Now all they need to do is get Sarah to the airport. Jackie finds a taxi driver willing to take them on the 180 mile journey. Then comes the crucial moment in their operation. If they can get Sarah on a flight bound for London, then she is safe.

[Jackie Davis]

And then there's me and her and they're, they're holding the stamp over the passport and looking at you and looking at the password and it's very dramatic and you're like, oh, get on with it, you know. Yeah, so eventually, yes, we got a flight, we got home and do you

[Anna Sinfield]

know how Sarah is now and, and

[Jackie Davis]

her baby, he's now grown up. Yep, absolutely fine. They're absolutely fine. Once you get a hostage home, that's not it. You've got to have people willing to help, you know, doctors, nurses, psychologists. There's a lot goes on to help them.

[Anna Sinfield]

When Jackie tells you an anecdote like this, she does it with a kind of offhand manner that sometimes makes you forget just how wild this all is. I mean, think about it. She climbed into somebody's bedroom in the middle of the night. She got a taxi driver to smash through iron gate. She hiked across a mountain range. She was caught in crossfire between two armies. Jackie says in the moment she never really feels scared.

[Jackie Davis]

Afterwards I'm like, somebody give me a cup of coffee and a cigarette. Because that could have gone really badly wrong. But you don't think about it at the time, you just do what you've gotta do. Cause that's what you're trained to do. But afterwards you can go, oh dear God. Thank God.

[Anna Sinfield]

That was a close scrape.

[Jackie Davis]

Yeah, that was close.

[Anna Sinfield]

I mean, I know you described it as a, a job, but obviously doing something like that is a big thing to go through. How, how does it feel for you to have to take on a job like that?

[Jackie Davis]

It's a job. Honestly. That sounds awful, doesn't it? It's a job, it's something that needs doing. At the end of the day you're trying to do the right thing. It's not always, but you think, you know, you're just trying to do the right thing. My attitude is any child does not have the right to be stolen at 10 and sold into marriage, which is what a lot of it is about. Or have female genital mutilation because that's what they did to the mum or the grandmother. Cut that to an eight year old kid. Wrong. Totally wrong. That's why you do it.

[Anna Sinfield]

So I mean, it does sound a little bit like you do have some sort of emotional connection to the work.

[Jackie Davis]

Justice. I believe in justice. That's what it is. Rather Than emotional, I suppose.

[Anna Sinfield]

Jackie is in her 60s now, a grande dame of the circuit. She's the operations director of a company called Optimal Risk Group, running their close protection, surveillance and investigations. Young recruits often come to her for advice.

[Jackie Davis]

I'm quite happy to teach people, let them learn by my mistakes and my good bits, you know, so they stay alive.

[Anna Sinfield]

And despite not really being a girl's girl, she does now kind of have her own group of girlfriends in the industry and they've got a cool name. Wise 13.

[Jackie Davis]

These ladies, these other 12 ladies, they're all heads of security of major corporations around the world or they have their own agency and we all help each other out, we pass each other intelligence and we have a network side where we help mentor new people coming into the industry. It's quite nice actually. We have a meet up online, the good old gossip.

[Anna Sinfield]

Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that gossip session.

[Jackie Davis]

Oh, yes.

[Anna Sinfield]

And so today, are there significantly more women in the industry than there were back when you started?

[Jackie Davis]

Yeah, it's still not enough. You know, there's over a hundred females are needed during the summer season just for lunch.

[Anna Sinfield]

So it sounds like you guys are recruiting. What are the requirements?

[Jackie Davis]

Well, my advice to you would be if you've got children, make sure they're school age or you've got a really good network around you that can look after your kid for two or three months at a time because you won't be going home. Make sure you understand what the training entails and that includes fitness. You know, sort yourself out, go down the gym, go, go swimming, stop eating Jaffa Cakes and McDonald's.

[Anna Sinfield]

Okay, so I need to work out and I need to eat healthy. Yep. And I need to have child care.

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[Jackie Davis]

Plus a decent pair of flat leather shoes because you're going to be standing in them a long time.

[Anna Sinfield]

Wonderful. Okay. A shoe based requirement, that's easy.

[Jackie Davis]

Skill set, soft skills far more important than hard skills. You've got nurses to talk to people. But yeah, you'd be great. How tall are you?

[Anna Sinfield]

I think I'm too short. I'm really short. I'm 4' 11. But I could do very specific, you know, children's protection or something.

[Jackie Davis]

Absolutely. You'd be brilliant. You know, once you've learned your unarmed combat, you'd be superb, I'm sure.

[Anna Sinfield]

Well, I guess it's comforting to know that if this whole podcast thing doesn't work out, I can fall back on something casual and easy like being an international bodyguard for wealthy children. If you've enjoyed this conversation. You can find loads more incredible women on our feed. Do check them out and please do spread the word and tell your friends about us. We want as many people as possible to be part of the Girlfriend's gang. Next time on the Girlfriend Spotlight ln Outsmarts the Nazis. I think it's Zinka that says no,

[Jackie Davis]

we need to go now and they

[Anna Sinfield]

slid off into the ditch along the road so they basically piled on top of each other like a pile of dead bodies and that the march continue past them. This season we're supporting the charity Womankind Worldwide. They do amazing work to help women's rights organizations and movements to strengthen and grow. If you'd like to find out more or donate to help them secure equal rights for women and girls across the globe, you can go to womankind.org UK. The Girlfriend Spotlight is produced by novel for iHeart podcasts. For more from Novel, visit Novel Audio. The show is hosted by me, Anna Sinfield. This episode was written and produced by Maddie Hickish with production support from Al Shabani, our assistant producer. Our producer is Lucy Carr. Our researcher is Zeana Youssef. The editor is Hannah Marshall. Max o' Brien and Craig Strachan are our executive producers. Production management from Joe Savage, Cherie Houston and Charlotte Wolf. Sound design, mixing and scoring by Nicholas Alexander and Daniel Kempson. Music supervision by Jake Otyvich, Nicholas Alexander and Anna Sinfield. Original music composed by Louisa Gerstein and Gemma Freeman. The series artwork was designed by Christina Lemkuhl. Willard Foxton is Creative Director of development. Special thanks to Katrina Norville, Carrie Lieberman and Will Pearson at iheart Podcasts as well as Carly Frankel and the whole team at wme.

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[Anna Sinfield]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.