THE family of a Burnley PC shot dead during a training exercise accused the police of an 'intentional and arrogant disregard for the safety rules'.

They spoke out yesterday after the officer responsible for the exercise was found guilty of breaching health and safety.

The father of PC Ian Terry also questioned why another officer, who fired the fatal shot, during a cops and robbers style exercise in June 2008, has never faced criminal prosecution.

The judge at Manchester Crown Court said because of the ‘inherent dangers’ of using live ammo in a training exercise, PC Terry’s death had been ‘foreseeable’ and ‘preventable’.

Yesterday, a police firearms officer who was responsible for organising the training routine at the former Sharp factory in Newton Heath, Manchester, was convicted of serious health and safety breaches, which resulted in the 32-year-old’s death.

His employers, Greater Manchester Police, were also fined £166,666, after they admitted their firearms training procedures were seriously at fault.

PC Terry was shot at point-blank range with a Remington shotgun by a colleague who has been identified only as ‘PC Chris’, the court heard.

The Burnley-born officer had been playing the role of a ‘bad guy’ and PC Chris is said to have reacted to a perceived ‘threat’, while he was supposed to be disabling the front wheel of a suspect car.

Speaking after the case, his father Roy Terry said: “We were and are still astonished that the Crown Prosecution Service has refused to put the individual who shot Ian on trial to account for his actions as he has so far failed to do so. He seems to have escaped the justice process entirely.”

The family described the last five years as ‘horrendous’ and they believe PC Terry's death was not properly investigated initially.

His widow Joanne, parents Roy and Sue and brother Paul were told that he had been killed in a ‘tragic accident’.

They have criticised the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which had assigned a supervising investigator who had no firearms experience.

And the family expressed deep concerns that PC Chris was never tested for alcohol or medication, after the shooting, to establish whether any outside influences may have affected his judgement at the time.

Mr Terry said: “It has become clear over the past five years that Ian was killed as a result of intentional and arrogant disregard for the safety rules in place to prevent this very tragedy and a careless attitude among some firearms trainers have for their responsibilities to ensure the safety of officers.”

Pc Terry’s widow Joanne said that one of her regrets was that her husband had not seen their children, who were aged two and four at the time of his death, grow up into ‘great little children’.

She added: “We are never going to be able to move on from this – it is just something that will remain with us. But we are a strong family.

“I appreciate that there are no winners in this and it is such a sad situation. But someone had to be held responsible for this and I am glad that everyone can see that now.”

Paul Terry added: “It was obvious the officers genuinely believed that they had not done anything wrong and that in itself was disappointing.”

The officer responsible for the course, who was referred to as PC Francis during the four-week trial to protect his identity, was found guilty of failing to protect his work colleague.

He ran the course without proper authorisation, unsafely introduced live practice rounds, failed to ensure PC Terry was wearing body armour and provoked a ‘shoot scenario’ by asking role players to act aggressively towards students undergoing the training.

One of his colleagues who was also on trial, named only as Sgt Eric, was cleared of a similar charge. He was said to have ‘encouraged’ PC Francis in the offences but he was found not guilty and a defence costs order was made.

PC Francis, a former army sergeant, was fined £2,000 with £500 costs. The Greater Manchester force must pay £90,000 in costs.

Defence counsel John Jones said that his client now faced disciplinary proceedings and would probably lose his job.

Mr Jones said it was clear that it was not only his client’s faults which had contributed to PC Terry’s death and others may well have been placed in the dock alongside him and Sgt Eric.

Passing sentence, Mr Justice Holroyde said: “No court, whatever penalty that it imposes, can restore life or turn back history and nobody should think for one moment that anything a court imposes in this case, or any involving fatalities, is in any way a valuation on a lost loved one or the grief suffered.”

Mike Calcutt, principal inspector for the Health and Safety Executive, said: “Ian Terry was a well-liked and respected police officer and a loving family man. His death was entirely preventable. Today PC Francis has been found guilty of failing to protect his colleague by introducing dangerous and reckless elements into a training exercise.

“GMP accepted its failings and we welcomed their guilty plea. Today is an important day for Ian Terry’s family, who have suffered an ordeal nobody should have to endure.”

Chief Constable Sir Peter Fahy apologised. He added: “Ian Terry was a highly skilled officer and it is part of the huge tragedy of this case that he died training in an activity that he loved.”