'Inspirational' Staffordshire officer wins Pride of Britain award

Police Constable Claire Bond of Staffordshire Police joined legendary fundraiser Sir Tom Moore and campaigning footballer Marcus Rashford among those receiving the prestigious Award on the ITV show last night (November 1).

Ordinarily she would have received her prize at a glittering Awards Ceremony attended by Royalty, the Prime Minister, politicians and high-profile celebrities but, as this could not take place this year, PC Bond was still very pleased to receive her award from pop star Olly Murs.

Since being injured on duty PC Bond – who won the Emergency Services Category in the Awards sponsored by the Daily Mirror and TSB – has dedicated herself to raising money for good causes and has been determined to return to policing, the job she loves.

It was a long road to rehabilitation but she achieved this earlier this year.

PC Bond said: “To win a Pride of Britain Award, I am totally honoured. I still can’t get used to it. I was up until 3 o’clock the morning I found out saying, ‘Is this actually happening? This has actually happened hasn’t it?’”

The officer’s life changed in September 2018, when she responded to reports that a car had crashed into a garage, near the route of a 10k race.

She said: “I’d been in the police force for 18 years and I never had anything extraordinary happen to me. We turned up for a normal shift and my colleague Dave [PC Dave Mullins] and I were having a cup of coffee and a teacake when a call came in: someone’s crashed into a garage, they’re slumped at the wheel, and the wheels are still turning.

“We blue-light it to Stafford and we encounter road closures. I say, ‘I’ll get out of the car, go and see if I can find this blue vehicle behind the allotments’. I’m running against the 10k runners and they’re yelling, ‘You’re running the wrong way, love!’ Then I saw the blue car go past an alleyway. So I ran back to Dave in the car and a couple of minutes later we’re driving along and this blue BMW pulls out in front of us. Dave puts on the siren and the car begins to pull over.”

But although the driver, Gurajdeep Malhi, leaned out of the window to look at them, he then suddenly drove off at high speed. PC Bond said it was like “an American movie” and “the scariest pursuit I’ve ever been in”.

They managed to corner Malhi, and PC Bond ran over to grab his car keys, but there was a struggle. PC Mullins sprayed Malhi in the face with PAVA spray, but he kept reversing, crushing PC Bond between the car and a fence.

She said: “The car started to reverse down and it moved my body round, like I was in a washing machine.”

The officer was flipped five feet into the air and dragged along the ground, before Malhi started reversing towards her again. Luckily PC Mullins pulled her to safety and Malhi drove away.

PC Bond said: “We’re just lying there and the car’s gone. I remember I looked back and my left leg was pointing the wrong way and I tried to lift my leg and my boot just felt like it was anchored. It just felt like jelly, and I was like, ‘Oh, my legs are in a bad way’.”

PC Mullins called an ambulance and while they were on the way to the hospital a call came in that officers had caught Malhi, who was a drug dealer and had £2,000 worth of cocaine in the BMW.

PC Bond said: “I felt such relief. I was going, ‘take my T-shirt, swab my hands. We’ve got DNA’. I just thought, ‘Thank God it’s been worth something’.”

Her husband Darren, and Connor, one of her four children, met her at the hospital, where she underwent a five-hour operation to save her legs.

She said: “I just remember coming round on the Monday and going, ‘Where am I?’, and I had a big frame on my leg.”

So began her road to recovery, which she says “was a lot longer than I anticipated – the consultant said 18 months to two years, but I heard six months”. She later needed two further surgeries.

Malhi was jailed for 12 years, and PC Bond said at his trial: “Better me than 20 runners with 20 families like mine.”

As the anniversary of the day came up, she had the idea to do the 10k run, in her wheelchair if need be. She told the BBC at the time: “I didn’t want to reach the anniversary and be sad about it or negative in any way.”

In the end her husband and PC Mullins ran the whole race and PC Bond did the first 9k in a wheelchair before she joined them for the final kilometre, which she walked with a stick, raising more than £1,400 for Care of Police Survivors (COPS).

This year, during Covid-19, she and her husband did a 10 1km walks around Staffordshire and raised nearly £2,500 for MIND. PC Bond has since returned to work, to a new role in the training department.

Her family tricked her  to get the television footage used in the Pride of Britain programme, telling her it was a documentary about hard work. Then the producers invited her for a tour of Manchester ITV studios where The Voice was being filmed.

PC Bond said: “Never in a million years did I think Darren would pull off Olly Murs singing Dear Darling to me, and say, ‘Claire this is all a lie. We would like to present you with the Pride of Britain’.

“If you can imagine how many applications they had, that somebody has believed that my story has inspired the whole of the country, I’m really honoured.”

When she accepted the award, PC Bond said: “I dedicate this not only to Dave, who saved me, and my husband, who’s been an absolute angel, but to all the police officers in the UK at the moment. It’s a difficult time for everybody, but this is for them. Keep on going, do what you can, and thanks very much.”

As well as raising money for good causes, PC Bond is also a Police Federation representative and prides herself in looking after her colleagues.

Phil Jones, chair of Staffordshire Police Federation, said: “We are exceptionally proud of Claire. You look at what she has been through and where she is now and it’s just astonishing the journey she’s been on. She’s an inspiration to loads of people. Not many people could do what she has done.

“It’s so important to still have Claire as part of the police family, and we’re so proud to have Claire as a Staffordshire police officer. She is truly an inspiration to other officers.

“Having her as a Federation rep is also brilliant as she can share her experiences, especially around wellbeing.

“She’s tremendously hard-working, and she deserves all the plaudits and the recognition she’s getting.”