PC ‘pulled injured officer from path of car’

● Constable tells court he thought colleague was going to die and her screams would stay with him ‘for the rest of his life’

A police officer has described how he saved a colleague’s life by pulling her from the path of a speeding car.

PC Robert Fitzsimmons, 32, told a court he thought injured fellow constable Deborah Lawson was going to die and her screams of pain would stay with him “for the rest of his life”.

He told jurors the incident eight months ago in which the pair were driven at in Glasgow was the “most scared I’ve ever been in my life”.

David Mclean, 31, and Ryan Gilmour, 25, are on trial at the High Court in Edinburgh, where they deny trying to kill the two officers. They are accused of the attempted murder of PC Lawson, 31, and PC Fitzsimmons by striking them repeatedly with a car in Banner Drive on Sunday 23 October last year.

PC Fitzsimmons told the court yesterday that the two officers had been called to a report of a man being chased by another man with a knife in the street at about 11:10pm.

On arrival, they found a dark 4x4 or people carrier vehicle in the middle of the road with its headlights on, which moved at a “crawl” towards them before stopping.

The witness said he and his colleague got out of the police car when they saw the driver’s door open.

PC Fitzsimmons said he struggled with the driver after he refused to get out of the car and tried to put it in gear, and then a passenger in the rear seat reached forward and grabbed the gear stick.

“He shouted, ‘Go, drive, go’,” the witness said.

“My concern was between the two of them the car was going to get moving.

“Myself and PC Lawson would then be in a bit of trouble, a life-threatening situation.”

PC Fitzsimmons said he discharged his incapacitant spray into the faces of the two men but it had “absolutely no effect whatsoever”.

At this point, he said the car began to reverse and both officers were swept backwards and dragged to the ground.

“I remember PC Lawson shouting at the top of her voice, ‘Stop, stop, stop’,” he told the court.

“To this day, I’ll never know how her head never went under that car. It was the most scared I’ve ever been in my life.

“PC Lawson’s screams will live with me for the rest of my life. I thought she was going to die and I couldn’t prevent it.”

He said the pair were only released from the car when he heard a “very loud bang” and, at that point, PC Lawson’s head was only about 3ft from the driver’s side of the vehicle.

The trial, before judge Lord Summers, continues.