Fallen police hero Fiona Bone was kind and gentle but also a “brave rock of a woman”, mourners at her funeral in Manchester have heard.
The 32-year-old officer was planning her wedding and had become the adopted parent of her partner’s five-year-old daughter, when her life was violently taken, the service heard.
Again police and public turned out in force to pay their respects at Manchester Cathedral to the officer who died in a gun and grenade attack in Hattersley, Tameside on September 18, along with colleague Pc Nicola Hughes, 23, who was laid to rest on Wednesday.
Sergeant Stephen Miskell told mourners: “Fiona was wonderful. She was wonderful at keeping colleagues’ spirits high with her bubbly nature. She was wonderful about caring for others. Fiona represented the best that humanity has to offer the world but that makes her loss even greater. Fiona was a woman of many contrasts. She was a calm and a gentle little bookworm, and yet a strong, brave rock of a woman.
“For me, Fiona represented the very best humanity has to offer the world which makes her loss all the greater but it gives me faith when I see how her death has touched communities everywhere.”
Pc Bone had met her partner Clare Curran through a mutual friend and she lived with Miss Curran and Miss Curran’s daughter, five-year-old Jessie in Sale, Cheshire.
Miss Curran asked Pc Bone, often referred to as “Fi” during the service, to be her life partner in February and the two became engaged and were excitedly planning for their big day next May. Pc Bone used to say that picking Jessie up from school and giving her a hug was the “very best part of her day”.
Jessie, dressed in pink and white, held her mother’s hand as they were led into the cathedral followed by Pc Bone’s parents Paul and June, who live on the Isle of Man, and the officer’s sister Vicky.
When the hour-long service came to a close, police officers again formed a guard of honour as Pc Bone’s coffin was carried outside, with her hat, black leather gloves and Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medal on top. The piper played a lament, Highland Cathedral, as the hearse pulled away, followed by the other cars in the cortege, officers standing to attention heads bowed.
Pc Bone will have a private burial in Scotland, attended only by close family and friends.