Police officer shot dead in Croydon to be added to roll of honour

Matiu Ratana, who died after being shot in Croydon, will be added to the National Police Memorial roll of honour in London.

The roll records more than 1,600 officers who have died in the line of duty.

Among them was PC Andrew Harper, who died when he was caught in a tow rope and dragged along country lanes after trying to stop quad bike thieves in Berkshire in August 2019.

In July this year, West Midlands police special constable Resham Singh Nahal died months after being struck by a car while attending another collision last November.

The roll of honour includes unarmed PC Keith Palmer, who was stabbed in March 2017 by Khalid Masood during the Westminster Bridge terror attack. Palmer was posthumously awarded the George Medal.

In 2009, PC Gary Toms, 37, was critically injured confronting suspects in Leyton, east London. He died six days later when his life support machine was switched off, 25 years to the day after PC Yvonne Fletcher was shot dead outside the Libyan embassy in London while controlling a crowd of demonstrators.

Her killer has never been brought to justice and film director Michael Winner founded the Police Memorial Trust as a result of her murder.

Ratana was the eighth officer shot dead in the UK over the past 20 years.

He was the first to be killed by a firearm in the line of duty since PCs Fiona Bone, 32, and Nicola Hughes, 23, in September 2012.

They were murdered by Dale Cregan in a gun and grenade attack while responding to a report of a burglary in Greater Manchester.

In July the same year, off-duty police officer PC Ian Dibell, 41, was shot dead while trying to stop gunman Peter Reeve, 64, who had fired at a couple in Clacton, Essex.

In March 2009, police officer Stephen Carroll was shot dead while responding to a call in Craigavon, County Armagh.

PC Ricky Gray was shot in the head by a gunman who then turned the weapon on himself in Shrewsbury in 2007, and PC Sharon Beshenivsky was shot dead when she and a colleague tried to stop armed robbers in Bradford in November 2005.

Another name on the roll is PC Keith Blakelock, a 40-year-old father of three who was hacked to death with a machete during the Broadwater Farm riots in 1985.