Shot PC tells how robber fired 'without hesitation'

(First Edition)

A POLICEMAN wounded in a gun battle in London told yesterday how a robber barely hesitated before shooting him.

But PC Barry Oldroyd-Jones, a member of the Metropolitan Police's firearms squad, said he did not support the routine arming of officers.

Speaking from his hospital bed, PC Oldroyd-Jones, 31, smiled and joked as he showed the wounds from about 100 shotgun pellets in his legs. His wife Karen, 30, also a police officer, was at his side at Charing Cross Hospital in Hammersmith, west London.

PC Oldroyd-Jones told how he was in an armed response vehicle which arrived at the scene of the failed robbery at a Putney jewellers within minutes. He leapt from the car, donned body armour and grabbed his machine gun and a sidearm before running across Putney Bridge. PC Oldroyd-Jones and a colleague were searching Hurlingham Gardens in Fulham for the suspect when he appeared. 'He came out from some gardens about 20ft in front of me. As soon as he saw me, he shot me.

'I just saw a dark figure because all I could see was the flash of the gun going off.'

Later, after failing to get into neighbouring houses with a hostage, the gunman, Kevin Richard Gregory, 32, shot himself.