Phil Glover was born and raised near Belfast, Northern Ireland. Having left school without qualifications, he served in the Royal Ulster Constabulary between 1983 and 2002. He returned to higher education in Scotland in 2008 and obtained an LLB (Honours) from the University of Aberdeen in 2012. He completed a PhD at the University of Aberdeen in 2015 before commencing a career in academia. He now teaches criminal law and conducts comparative national security-related research at Curtin University Law School, Perth, Western Australia.