Officers still ‘under threat’ after deaths of policewomen

Officers remain under threat after the deaths of two policewomen in a grenade and gun attack, Peter Fahy, the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police warned last night.

Fahy said he could not be sure all the explosive devices had been recovered from the area where PCs Nicola Hughes and Fiona Bone were attacked on Tuesday.

Two men have been arrested and are being questioned over their deaths — Dale Cregan, 29, who was one of the country’s most wanted men, and a 28-year-old.

The second man was detained in the Hattersley area yesterday on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, Fahy said. Cregan, who was wanted for questioning over the deaths of father and son David and Mark Short, handed himself over to police shortly after the two officers were killed.

Fahy said yesterday: “We are not confident that we have recovered all the grenades, we don’t know for certain, so we’ve made it clear to our officers that the threat is still there.

“I would want that to be the message, this has been a long-standing criminal feud between different outfits in Manchester and in the Tameside area, and that threat is very much there.”

He said the force had issued Osman warnings — notices given to people under threat of being murdered or seriously injured — to “a large number of individuals”.

PC Bone, whose family flew over from the Isle of Man yesterday, died at the scene of the attack, while PC Hughes died a short time later in hospital.

Fahy said the force’s main priority yesterday had been supporting their families.

“Both families have separately said that their loved ones died doing the job they loved,” he said.

He reiterated that police had no intelligence about the address in Abbey Gardens where the two officers were sent, and therefore there was nothing to indicate a greater than normal threat.

On Tuesday, Fahy had suggested the two officers had been lured to their deaths, telling a press conference that a call had been made reporting a burglary at the address.

The force said that one of the officers’ Tasers was found on the ground out of its holster at the scene. Witnesses said a hail of bullets was fired and then a grenade was used during the attack.

Thousands of tributes poured in for the pair yesterday, including from the Queen, and the force held a minute’s silence in their memory at 11am, almost precisely 24 hours since the attack.