IT was pleasing to read your report (LET, February 1) on the bravery awards to four police officers at the opening of the new police headquarters at Greenbank, Blackburn.
However, it was stated that the trophy presented in memory of Detective Inspector James O'Donnell, who was shot on duty in 1958, was not awarded initially because police judged no-one worthy enough, suggesting that, after it was presented by Mrs O'Donnell in 1959, no officer had committed any act of bravery to warrant an award for 44 years.
It is in my opinion that the trophy had been placed somewhere in the Northgate police headquarters in 1959 and had been forgotten, until it reappeared during the removal of furniture and fittings for the move to Greenbank.
The statement that no-one was worthy enough sounds like a cover for the trophy being misplaced.
If the trophy had been awarded, as it should have been, to Jack Covill and Jack Riley after the Brewery Street siege in which Det. Insp O'Donnell was shot, then the whereabouts of this trophy would not have been a mystery and there would not have been need for unwarranted statements.
DOUG MOSS, Whalley Old Road, Blackburn.
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