First South Yorkshire Police Federation Bravery Awards “Overwhelming Fantastic Success”

THE South Yorkshire Police Federation Bravery Awards were an “absolute overwhelming fantastic success”, Steve Kent, Federation Chair has said.

Sgt Stuart Greatwood, Sgt Gary Reece and PC Paul Reeder were the overall winners at the ceremony, which celebrated the courage of 11 colleagues.

The trio, who swam out into a freezing river in a valiant attempt to save two men from a car, will represent the force in the National Police Bravery Awards next month.

Steve said: “We’ve had really positive feedback from the officers involved, most importantly – from both the award winners and the other officers who attended.”

Steve welcomed the positive media coverage that occurred as a result, which was reflected in social media and public praise. He said it was especially welcome at a time when high-profile cases from outside the force have drawn criticism of policing as a wider body, and off the back of the IOPC report into the Rotherham investigations between1997 and 2013.

Steve said: “We’ve even had people who are clearly negative towards the police hold their hands up and say: ‘these are fantastic examples of bravery’. That positivity has a massive impact on everyone, especially seeing as we’ve had some negative views being expressed in the last couple of weeks.

“The night went even better than expected, because I expected it to be really good but there’s no way it could have gone any better, from our perspective. And the most important thing, was the smile on the faces of the officers up there and the way that afterwards they were buzzing about what had happened. So it was an absolute overwhelming fantastic success.”