Senior officers facing fanatic -- hairy hard case, soft inside (7)
I believe the answer is:
coconut
'hairy hard case soft inside' is the definition.
'senior officers facing fanatic' is the wordplay.
'senior officers facing' becomes 'coco' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'fanatic' becomes 'nut' (I've seen this before).
'coco'+'nut'='COCONUT'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for coconut that I've seen before include "fair target" , "Palm tree product" , "Large palm fruit" , "Hard thing" , "Large seed; head" .)