Wedding guard: Heyrick Bond Gunning watches over Pippa Middleton on the day of her sister's wedding The discreet gentleman seen here watching over Pippa Middleton on the day of her sister Kate’s marriage to Prince William has been revealed as an ex-Army officer whose security firm is advising the family on their personal safety.
Heyrick Bond Gunning, a former captain in the Grenadier Guards, is the director of Salamanca, a ‘global risk consultancy’ that has been advising the Middletons since their profile rose after the royal engagement was announced last year.
While Kate, as Duchess of Cambridge, is now entitled to official police protection, her family – parents Michael and Carole, sister Pippa and brother James – are not, so ‘they have made their own arrangements’, according to a royal source.
‘They aren’t guarded 24 hours a day or anything like that. But they are an ordinary family who have been thrust into an extraordinary situation and have needed help and advice.’
Mr Bond Gunning, 40, wearing a morning suit and his Grenadier Guards tie, played a significant – if unobtrusive – role escorting members of the family on the day of the royal wedding in April. Since then, he and his team, many of whom are ex-soldiers, have provided the family with advice regularly. The firm, whose clients range from FTSE 100 companies to Russian oligarchs, charges thousands a day for its services.
Approached by the Mail, Mr Bond Gunning said: ‘We can’t talk about any clients by name.’ But he did not deny he was the man photographed with the Middletons on the day of the wedding.
Public-school educated Mr Bond Gunning spent six years in the Grenadier Guards, serving in Macedonia, Kenya and Northern Ireland. Soon after leaving the Army, he was employed by the global postal company DHL to start a branch in Iraq. He arrived in lawless Baghdad in 2003 on the first civilian plane to land there after the conflict.
In his book Baghdad Business School, he described how he built a multi-million-pound air-freight service after starting with the barest of essentials, including a tent and an envelope containing $25,000 (then worth about £14,700) in used notes.
He eventually left to advise companies starting businesses in the Middle East before joining Salamanca in 2007.
Iconic: Pippa sprang to worldwide fame when she was maid of honour at Kate's marriage to Prince Williamsource:dailymail
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