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DEATH'S DOOR
I watched in horror as bomb blew up commander… then I pulled family from burning plane – inside real-life Trigger Point
After leaving the Army, Joel Snarr won the Queen's Gallantry Medal in 2022 for a heroic motorway rescue
ON a Saturday morning, Joel Snarr is at home eating breakfast with his wife. Then the phone rings... and he is out the door.
A bomb disposal expert for the British Army, he's just been told there is a serious security threat at Gatwick Airport. It is November 14, 2015, the day after the Paris terror attacks, and the world is on high alert.
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Police have arrested a man from France after he appeared to discard a firearm and other suspicious items in a bin at the airport.
Joel recalls: “I got the call, we blue-lighted there, met the Gatwick Airport manager and the emergency services at the scene.
“I got them to shut the whole place down, grounded all the flights, put my bomb suit on, took a weapon and then walked up the escalator into an empty departures lounge on a Saturday morning. It was surreal. Who gets to do that?”
The airport's North Terminal was closed for more than six hours while Joel carried out his investigations, including a small controlled explosion, before he successfully resolved the incident and returned home to long-suffering wife Sarah - who was used to his sudden exits.
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Now retired, Joel is using his skills as one of the Army's highest qualified bomb disposal officers to act as an advisor on the hit ITV drama Trigger Point, starring Vicky McClure.
The second series of the high-octane show, which sees Line of Duty star Vicky play Lana ‘Wash’ Washington, a police bomb disposal expert in London, kicked off last Sunday.
Joel reveals Vicky, 40, has become such a pro she could probably be a London Met explosives officer – or “Expo” - for real.
He tells The Sun: “Half-way season two we’d be rehearsing the scene and Vicky would say, ‘That doesn’t quite make sense if I'm an operator’ and I’d say, ‘You’re absolutely correct. That action doesn’t make sense.’
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“Rather than going through the motions, she could point out things I was thinking weren’t quite right, which makes my job easier and more enjoyable. And it makes her more believable.”
Joel, who was in 11 Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Search Regiment RLC, served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland during a distinguished 15-year career.
Originally from Blackpool but now living in Cardiff with Sarah, 36, and their four-year-old daughter Laila, he joined the Army aged 21 as an ammunition technician.
He explains: “You all start off unqualified as second in command, prepping kits, prepping robots - like new recruit Danny [played by Eric Shango] in the show.”
In 2009, Joel was on a tour of Afghanistan, in what would be the bloodiest year for British troops there, when his operator was killed.
He was just yards away when his team commander walked towards an improvised explosive device (IED) which then exploded.
Joel recalls: “It was a huge shock. The whole crew was stunned into silence to start with, but then you have just got to get on with things. A few days later we were back with a different operator and we just finished the tour.
It was a huge shock. The whole crew was stunned into silence to start with, but then you have just got to get on with things. A few days later we were back with a different operator and we just finished the tour
Joel Snarr
“After that I went on to do the same course that he did and then a couple of years later found myself in Afghanistan as number one.”
On his third tour Joel and his team neutralised 25 to 30 IEDs, which he claims was “nothing compared to some operators before me”.
He highlights one operation, which he calls “the best day of my Army service”, when he was called to disarm an IED which had already severely injured someone.
“It was the culmination of all my training, deployments, sacrifice and service," Joel says. "It was a very dangerous device.
"It had also destroyed another team’s EOD robot on a separate occasion. We needed to understand how the device worked so as to counter it in future, so I made a manual approach to neutralise it.
The ‘long walk’ as we call it is exhilarating. It’s something that so few people will ever get to experience in their lives
Joel Snarr
“This is where the ability to compartmentalise emotions and fears comes into play - a skill which I believe makes a good operator.
“The ‘long walk’ as we call it is exhilarating. It’s something that so few people will ever get to experience in their lives. You are completely on your own with everyone looking in.
"In Afghanistan, it’s roads and buildings to clear and you are just with yourself walking down to the device.
“Afterwards me and my team were extremely proud of our achievement. I couldn't have done it without them."
Night terrors
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Joel and Sarah tied the knot in 2013, and he remained in the UK for two years working as a staff sergeant at the Felix Training Area for bomb disposal.
But he started suffering night terrors and was eventually diagnosed with PTSD in 2014.
Joel says: “Looking back, me and my friends had clear issues and we just all brushed it under the carpet for years and did more tours, sometimes in life threatening situations.”
Things improved with the help of antidepressants, but after yet another high risk tour in Northern Ireland in 2017, Joel was signed off sick before being medically discharged from the Army in 2019.
Looking back, me and my friends had clear issues and we just all brushed it under the carpet for years and did more tours, sometimes in life threatening situations
Joel Snarr
It was a huge blow, but he slowly pieced his life back together.
He landed the Trigger Point job after being contacted by former Paratrooper Paul Biddiss, now a technical military advisor for the film and TV industry, who's worked on Hollywood movies including the new Wonka film starring Timothée Chalamet.
Joel says: “Trigger Point landed at his door and for all the skills and knowledge Paul has, he isn’t a bomb disposal operator, so rather than bluff it like some would have done, he reached out to the EOD community.
“I put my CV in, and he said, ‘Right I’ll give you a shot, mate. I’ll meet you on set and we’ll do a couple of days to see if we get on.'
"It worked out and I’ve been doing solid work for him for a few years now.”
Plane crash hero
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Joel, who also works as a Homemade Explosives Instructor for a company called Alford Training Limited, was asked back for the second series and has become close friends with leading lady Vicky.
She was one the first to congratulate Joel on winning the Queen's Gallantry Medal in 2022, after he risked his life to save a family from a plane crash.
He was driving down the A40 near Abergavenny in south Wales with Sarah in 2019 when the aircraft crashed into the busy road.
His military training kicked in and along with another driver, Daniel Nicholson, they pulled the three people from the wreckage, seconds before it became engulfed in flames.
Joel explains: “It’s compartmentalisation. If you panic, it could overwhelm you. I just shelved everything important to me, then before you know it, it's all over, everyone is OK.”
He adds: “Daniel did infinitely more than I did. He had no military training.
"No one would have blamed him for staying in the car to look after his son. But he was there before me, he was a bit closer and he had saved two lives by the time I got there.”
Pals with the stars
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Speaking about Vicky, Joel says: “She’s really down to earth. She always wants to do a solid job, wanting to represent the men and women who do the job well.
“I will tell you a great story about how great she is to work with.
“The end of season one I FaceTimed my wife. She was driving so she gave the phone to my daughter, who was two at the time.
“I’m standing in the middle of the street talking to my daughter, Vicky sees me, she says, ‘Oh is that your daughter?’ She chats to Laila, who has no idea what is happening.
“My wife texts me later, saying: ‘I can’t believe that she just FaceTimed with our daughter’! So I said to Vicky, 'If I Facetime my wife now, can you be on the other end of it, not me?'
"And she went, ‘Yes of course I can.’ When my wife picked up, Vicky went, ‘Hi mate, you ok?’ My wife was speechless.”
True to life
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Joel gave the cast a "crash course", admitting: "Trying to get someone who has never done it to convincingly represent you and your friends on TV is a tough ask.
“There’s the thirst when you’re an operator of ‘I want to go down and deal with this.’ That’s a hard thing for people to believe. ‘Wait, you want to do that?’
“We all want to take the fight to the bad guy. We all want to do these bombs, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it.”
Some have accused Trigger Point of being far fetched, but Joel insists it's true to life, with false alarms, heavy bomb suits and robots that stop working, forcing manual intervention.
He adds: “It’s a drama, not a documentary. It’s got to be exciting, nail-biting. So there’s lots of action.
“Trust me, no one wants to watch a documentary about bomb disposal. These things can take eight hours to do, sometimes even longer. So it had to be brought into this middle ground."
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But he won't give any plot lines away, joking: “I’ve signed an NDA and I don’t want to get myself sacked!”
Trigger Point is on ITV1 and ITVX on Sundays at 9pm.
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