Bravery award for roof rescue officer

A police officer who saved a woman she found clinging by her fingertips from an ice-covered 30 foot high roof in Oswestry is to be rewarded for her bravery.

Constable Andrea Marston, 26, heard the woman's cries for help during a night-time police chase. "Officers carry out these type of things all the time and it's part and parcel of the job. All I was doing was what I was paid for," she said.

The dramatic rescue took place on the roof of B&M in Oswestry after police responded to a report of a burglary.

"One of the offenders made off and my colleague followed, and I was stood outside the store in case the other one came back," she said. "It was about 5am and it was freezing cold. Then I heard what sounded like the cries of a female and went to investigate. I got on to the roof and I could just see the fingertips of a woman clinging to the edge.

"I think she must have climbed up the fire escape to try to get away. I went and hauled her up. It was about a 30ft drop. She wasn't very grateful when I arrested her, but she acknowledged later that if I hadn't been there she could have fallen and been badly injured or even killed."

Constable Marston, who lives in Oswestry but is now stationed at Shrewsbury, will receive a Royal Humane Society award, personally signed and approved by Princess Alexandra, the society's president.

Society secretary Dick Wilkinson said: "She showed great bravery and richly deserves the award."