Service comes together to remember fallen colleagues

POLICE officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice – and their surviving family members – have been remembered at the Care of Police Survivors (COPS) Annual Service of Remembrance.

Essex’s Deputy Chief Constable Matthew Horne represented the force at the event at the National Memorial Arboretum in Burton-upon-Trent.

Mr Horne said it was vital that he paid his respects to the officers who had given their lives in public service.

He said: “COPS is a charity that looks after the survivors for those that have lost loved ones in the service. It’s one of those brilliant charities that we have in this country that really does some fantastic work, and if you want to see the benefits of it just look at the care and support that everybody has here together as the police family.

“I am here to represent the brave men and women of Essex, many of whom have given their lives. And there are families here who lost their loved ones in service – some before I joined the police service and some while I’ve been serving.”

Mr Horne paid tribute to the whole police family, adding: “Now you’ve got brothers and sisters serving together, husbands and wives, their fathers were in it, and this is part of that, that we are in a family.

“So I think when you remember those that have lost loved ones I think you feel that with them. Being here you get that huge sense of pride and you see the families, the children up there, eulogies and poems and that just stays with you forever.

“We are just grateful for the people that still every day go out into the streets, whether it be in Essex or London, or Birmingham, and put their neck on the line to do that.”