Ten days before he lost his left eye when it was shot out by a Saudi royal bodyguard during a training exercise Gary had been part of a team that arrested two men armed with a sawn-off shotgun who were about to commit a robbery on a family home
Gary Pearson was a brave cop. Before a hushed-up shooting changed the course of his career he had shown his mettle at the sharp end of the thin blue line.
At the time Gary, then aged 30, and living in Prestwich, was a Detective Constable, and an aid in the firearms department. "We were in Kielder Forest near the Kielder Dam. We were training Saudi and Bahrain officers in anti-ambush techniques and firearms scenarios. They were police officers and army.
"The blank had gone into the eye socket and blown up the back of the eye which destroyed the optic nerve. There was a lot of tissue loss and bone loss. Doctors said they had to take out what was left of the eye as leaving it in would be a risk as it could affect the other eye and I would go blind." Gary said: "The welfare officer from the police up there arranged for her to stay at a nearby borading house. She stayed there with my lad for close to a week before we were brought back down to Manchester. A couple of weeks after that I got a bill through the post from the GMP welfare department asking for over £200 for her stay. I paid it."
"Throughout all my stay in the hospital and my two months at home, l was never visited by police or welfare, not even a phone call." "In about 1990, I took GMP to court for compensation. They wouldn’t even agree the Saudis were in the country but in 1990 I received an out-of-court settlement’. Gary received a £45,000 settlement. The Saudi who fired the revolver was never prosecuted.
"In the summer of 83 I was on patrol in Swinton when a guy flagged me down and said there was a guy on the top floor of a car park in a red Mini who was acting strange. I drove up there and could see there was somebody in the Mini. Tom said: "On March 9th of this year, the welcome posthumous 'Elizabeth Emblem' was finally approved recognising the ultimate sacrifice of those who lost their lives carrying out their duty.
Commenting on Gary's case he said: "Have you ever heard a more shocking uncaring story than this? If anyone still believes there is such a mythical beast as a ‘Police Family’ then this is surely testament that it is nothing more than mere propaganda. Would a member of any genuine family refer to a loved one who had lost an eye as ‘Cyclops’?
"This disgrace was partially corrected by the introduction of the posthumous Elizabeth Emblem, meaning that the next of kin of all public servants who were killed on duty - and sadly will be in the future - and backdated to 1948 will be eligible for the award. However, the flaw is the surviving injured are once again overlooked, hence the important need to adopt my campaign proposal.
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