CLAIRE’S PRIDE OF BRITAIN AWARD
SHE WAS BADLY HURT TACKLING DRUG DEALER
INSPIRATIONAL Staffordshire police officer PC Claire Bond,who sustained life-changing injuries when she was struck by the driver of an out-of-control car, has won a national Pride of Britain Award, dedicating it to “all the police officers in the UK”.
Claire joined fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore and campaigning footballer Marcus Rashford among those receiving the Award on the ITV show last night.
Ordinarily she would have received her prize at a glittering awards ceremony attended by royalty and highprofile celebrities but Claire was still very pleased to receive her award from pop star Olly Murs.
Since being injured on duty, Claire – 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 been determined to return to policing, the job she loves. It was a long road to rehabilitation but she achieved this earlier this year.
Claire said: “To win a Pride of Britain Award, I am totally honoured. I still can’t get used to it. I was up until three o’clock the morning I found out saying, ‘Is this actually happening? This has actually happened hasn’t it?’”
Claire’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 force for 18 years. We turned up for a normal shift and my colleague Dave [PC Mullins] and I were having a coffee and a teacake when a call came in: someone’s crashed into a garage, they’re slumped at the wheel.
“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!’ I ran back to Dave and soon 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 drove off at high speed. Claire said it was like “an American movie” and “the scariest pursuit I’ve ever been in”.
They managed to corner Malhi, and
Claire ran over to grab his car keys but there was a struggle. Dave sprayed Malhi in the face with PAVA, but he kept reversing, crushing Claire between the car and a fence. She was flipped five feet in the air and dragged along before Malhi started reversing towards her again. Dave pulled her to safety and Malhi drove away.
Claire said: “We’re lying there and the car’s gone. 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 and I was like, ‘Oh, my legs are in a bad way.’”
Dave called an ambulance and a call came in that officers had caught Malhi, who was a drug dealer and had £2,000 worth cocaine in the BMW. Claire 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’.” Claire’s 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 Claire’s 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 Claire said at his trial: “Better me than 20 runners with 20 families like mine.”
As the anniversary came up, Claire 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.”
Darren and Dave ran the whole race and Claire 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).
During lockdown, Claire and Darren did ten 1km walks around Staffordshire and raised nearly £2,500 for MIND. Claire has since returned to work, to a new role in the training department.
Her family tricked her in order to get the TV footage used in the Pride of Britain programme, telling her it was a documentary about hard work. Claire said: “Never in a million years did I think Darren would pull off getting Olly Murs singing Dear Darling to me!”