A 30-year-old police officer — described by his wife as ‘lovely, generous and clever’ —has died on a stag party in Newcastle.

PC Neil Hustwit, from Laneshawbridge, fainted after walking into a pub and, despite colleagues’ efforts to revive him, he died at the scene.

His family have been left shocked after his sudden death last Saturday night.

The 30-year-old father-of-two had decided to hold the party for his best friend Robert Shackleton in Newcastle after the volcanic ash cloud had forced the cancellation of their flight to Spain, where the event was originally to be held.

Neil’s widow Jayne, 30, said: “A group of them had been to watch the football and gone for a couple of drinks.

"Neil had gone out and walked back in through the door of the pub and he went as if he had fainted.

“An ambulance was called and his colleagues, being policemen and trained in first aid, checked his pulse and tried to revive him but they couldn’t.”

Neil, a psychology graduate from Lincoln University, had been with West Yorkshire police for seven years.

Mrs Hustwit, who met Neil 12 years ago at South Craven School, Keighley, said he was the “best father there could be” for his two children, Alexander, four, and Amy, two.

“He didn’t just do shift work for the police,” she said. “He did shift work at home and used to take them down to the park. He was so patient with them. He was my best friend. We were a team. He used to joke ‘we will not let those kids beat us. We are a team’.

“This should not be happening. If it had happened in his line of duty, if there was somebody we could blame, somebody we could say did this to him . . . But we don’t know why it happened. We don’t have any answers.”

An inquest has been opened and adjourned.

His mother Christine said Neil was a gentle man who listened to people and loved his family and ‘above everything, his children’.

His 31-year-old brother Rick, who lives in Hong Kong, is trying to get a flight home to be with the family.

Coun Andrew Mallinson, who represents the Craven ward for Bradford Council and is Neil’s father-in-law, said the family was going through a ‘roller-coaster of emotions’.

“We are all trying to deal with what is to us an incomprehensible and sense-less loss,” he said.

Divisional commander of Airedale and North Bradford police, Chief Supt Ian Kennedy, said Neil was a popular officer who worked hard to serve the local community.

He said: “There is a real sense of shock at Neil’s unexpected and untimely death.

"Our sincerest condolences go out to his family and friends, particularly his wife and children.

“They can be proud of the job Neil did for West Yorkshire Police.”

Neil’s funeral will be held on Friday at Bolton Abbey, near Skipton, where Neil and Jayne were married.