Police last protection against jungle savagery says Bishop

The police are “our last line of protection against the savagery of the jungle”, a bishop said yesterday as prayers were held across the country in memory of two officers murdered in a gun and grenade attack.

Roman Catholic Bishop the Rt Rev Mark Davies told churchgoers in Hattersley, where the horrific killings took place, the community “must stand as one” to avoid such deaths being accepted as “commonplace”.

Pcs Nicola Hughes, 23, and Fiona Bone, 32 – who had eight years’ service between them – were 
ambushed on Tuesday as they were called to a false burglary report.

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Pc Bone, who was planning her wedding – died at the scene, while her colleague lost her life a short time later in hospital.

Both officers were unarmed.

Dale Cregan, the 29-year-old man charged with their murders as well as the killings of David Short, 46, his son, Mark, 23, and four attempted murders across East Manchester, will appear at Manchester Crown Court today via videolink.

Bishop Davies led prayers for the officers, their families, friends and colleagues at St James the Great RC Church yesterday. He said Pc Hughes and Pc Bone were met with “merciless and ferocious violence” as they responded to an emergency call for the safety and protection of the community.

“Today, with so many across the world we remember and hold in our prayer these two police officers together with their families and loved ones and the many colleagues who deeply mourn their loss,” he said.

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“We feel a sense of sorrow and outrage too. We recall how what is good in the dedicated service of the community met on our own streets with what is evil in the hate and violence which did not hesitate to indiscriminately kill.

“The sound of gunfire and a grenade exploding in the streets of this parish, the death of two young women fulfilling their duty, tragically reminds us that the police service stands as our last line of defence against the savagery of the jungle.”

The Hattersley estate was where Moors Murderer Ian Brady lived in the 1960s and Bishop Davies told the congregation he knew its residents had “come through the darkest of days” half a century ago.

He said once again it was a time to renew the faith that evil will not prevail in the end.

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A two-minute silence was 
held and candles were lit in front of photographs of the two officers, while a remembrance service 
also took place in Pc Hughes’s home village of Diggle, 
Oldham.

Meanwhile the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police, Sir Peter Fahy, said yesterday his faith was important to him after the “very, very dark day”.

“I think a lot of us feel passionately that policing is a vocation,” he said.

“I feel that in terms of my own faith but I know a lot of officers that don’t have a faith, but feel exactly the same.

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“You do often feel so helpless, so praying for the dead officers, praying for their families, becomes your own reaction, 
your own expression of hope really for them, at a time of great 
need.

“We believe very much in 
what Robert Peel laid down for us back in 1829, that we are a routinely unarmed police force, that we use the minimum of force and that we have this very close, connection with the community we serve.”

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