Tributes pour in for two female police officers shot dead after responding to false burglary reports

Colleagues and families pay tribute to Greater Manchester Police officers who were attacked yesterday

Colleagues and families of two female police officers paid tribute to the women who were killed in a hail of bullets as they were lured to a false report of a burglary yesterday.

PC Fiona Bone, 32, and PC Nicola Hughes, 23, were killed in a gun and grenade attack in Tameside, Greater Manchester.

Officers paid their respects, taking a minute's silence and placing floral tributes near the scene. PC Hughes's parents also released a tribute, saying she died 'doing a job she loved.'

The policewomen were attacked after a routine visit to the scene of a reported burglary. But this was a trap, and the women were shot down and had a grenade thrown at them.

PC Bone, who was looking forward to her civil partnership with her partner, died at the scene while PC Hughes later died of her injuries in hospital.

After the shooting Dale Cregan, a fugitive wanted over the double killing of father and son Mark and David Short, handed himself into a police station and was immediately arrested on suspicion of murder.

Prime Minister David Cameron said the killings were ‘a shocking reminder of the debt we owe to those who put themselves in danger to keep us safe and secure – what we have seen is the absolutely despicable act of pure evil’.

Greater Manchester Police said 2,600 messages of condolence had already been left for the officers.

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