The Problem
The CEO’s World Before We Stepped In
A global brand CEO started receiving threats from someone he’d never met — a former employee based in the UK making increasingly specific claims about his home address in the US.
External problem: Threatening communications escalating, including references to where his family lived.
Internal problem: He couldn’t sleep. Every car in the driveway, every unexpected knock — was this the person coming to make good on the threats?
Philosophical problem: He’d built a successful company, provided jobs, done everything right. Now someone he’d never even spoken to was targeting his family. That’s not fair.
His lawyers were preparing the legal response, but legal work takes time. While they were preparing the paperwork, he was lying awake at 3 a.m., wondering if this person was booking flights to the US.
That’s when he contacted us.
Why Traditional Security Was Getting This Wrong
Most security firms would’ve immediately ramped up protection at the CEO’s home: more cameras, guards, threat assessments of the property.
But that doesn’t answer the question keeping him awake: Is this person coming?
Without understanding who you’re dealing with and what’s driving their behaviour, you’re just guessing. And guessing wrong means either overreacting — living in a fortress when you don’t need to — or underreacting when genuine danger’s building.
We’ve spent three decades assessing threats. We know the difference between someone who’s all noise and genuinely dangerous.
The Solution
What We Did
First, we investigated the former employee’s social media. We wanted to see if his public behaviour matched his private threats — whether he broadcast his grievances or kept them focused on the CEO.
He wasn’t posting about it publicly, but his social media showed a lifestyle contradicting his claims of financial hardship, which told us something about his motivations.
Then we brought in forensic psychological analysis. We examined the language in his communications, social media patterns, and overall online presence.
We needed to answer two questions: What’s driving this behaviour? And does he have the capability to act on these threats?
What We Found Changed Everything
The forensic report identified narcissistic personality disorder. That explained the exaggerated sense of grievance, the need for attention, and the targeting of someone high-profile despite having no connection to him.
Critically, the former employee was UK-based. There is no evidence of travel plans, and there is no capability to act on threats about the CEO’s home in the US.
Risk level: Low.
But here’s why psychological profiling matters: it tells us exactly how to manage communication in the future. You don’t handle narcissistic personality disorder the same way you’d handle other threat types.
The wrong approach would’ve escalated things. The right approach — informed by proper profiling — contained it.
What Would’ve Happened Without Proper Assessment
If the CEO had just ramped up security without understanding the threat, here’s what would’ve happened:
He’d be living in fear. His family would be living in fear—every business trip, every public appearance — wondering if this was when the person would show up.
The lawyers might’ve responded in a way that escalated the former employee’s behaviour rather than managing it properly.
And the CEO would’ve spent months, maybe years, living with anxiety that wasn’t necessary — because nobody had worked out whether the threat was real.
That’s the cost of guessing instead of knowing.
The Outcome
The Outcome
The CEO understood what he was dealing with. The lawyers had a clear strategy informed by psychological profiling, not guesswork. The family could stop worrying about someone showing up at their door.
He started sleeping properly again. Making decisions based on actual risk, not fear. Getting back to running his company instead of lying awake at 3am.
That’s what proper threat assessment delivers: clarity, confidence, and control.
You don’t just throw more security at it. You understand what you’re facing first, then manage it intelligently.
From the client:Having a situation of hostile social media against a Senior Executive from our firm, our legal department from our home office outside the UK was gravely concerned about the intent and possibility of violence on behalf of the individual behind the hostile and derogatory comments on social media sites. Reaching out to Defuse and the expertise of Philip Grindell and his team of experts in behaviour sciences, we were provided with an in-depth psychological profile of the individual and what actions he may escalate to if confronted with legal and law enforcement action. Defuse reviewed the information the firm provided as well as analysed the social media, determining that the possibility of direct violent threat was minimal, if at all, and through their expert analysis, determined that there were extenuating circumstances driving this activity, such as alcohol or drug involvement. Understanding this, our legal department felt more confident in taking immediate law enforcement action and confronting the individual directly, which had a positive effect and apologies from the individual. This situation was resolved without further incident. This result was due to the professional approach and analysis that Defuse provided to our firm. Highly recommended should any company, big or small, have situations requiring professional analysis of threat and risk mitigation