Three Essex Officers Win Bravery Awards After Life-Saving Sea Rescue

12 May 2025

Three officers who entered the sea in treacherous conditions to rescue a vulnerable woman who was attacking them have received Essex Police Federation 2025 Bravery Awards.

At around 11pm on 19 August 2023, Essex Police received a 999 call reporting that a vulnerable woman was suffering a mental health crisis and had entered the sea at Harwich, saying that she wanted to kill herself.

Two PCs who want to remain anonymous attended the beach and managed to locate the woman, who was walking along the groyne out to sea. She was already 200-250 metres away from the shore and, due to the tide, she was already in water up to her thighs.

The officers called out to the woman but with no success.

They alerted the RNLI coastguard and started to make their way along the groyne, but as they did so the woman slipped off the groyne and went under the water. She resurfaced, went under again and resurfaced again, but on the third occasion she went under she didn’t resurface.

One of the officers recalls: “We both sort of turned around and each was like, ‘Can you swim? Can you swim?’, and we were like, 'Yeah, I used to be a lifeguard, I can swim’. So we both took our kit off... our stab vests and our radios and our Tasers... and we walked along the sandbank... we gave each other a bit of a look as if to say we’re thinking about the same thing, and we both just jumped off the sandbank and managed to get hold of her.”

The officers knew the water was deep and had an undercurrent.

As they got hold of her, the woman started to fight them; she hit one of the officers to the head several times with her phone and also struck the other officer.

Despite being exhausted, the officers managed to hold onto the woman, and tried to tow her back to the groyne.   

Meanwhile PC Daniel Brown and a colleague heard what was happening over the radio and went to the scene. The coastguard still hadn’t arrived and PC Brown was unable to see or hear either the officers or the woman due to the poor light. He decided to go into the water himself to find them.

He recalled: “I was in fear for the officers’ safety and I knew that every second counted. I wasn’t prepared to just stand on the shore, thinking: ‘if, but, maybe..’. So I took my body armour off and took myself and my torch out along the groyne. I was getting deeper and deeper, and I started to really fear for my colleagues. I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t see, it was pitch black. All you could hear was waves. I was shining my torch around and then eventually I could see heads bobbing up, and I made my way over.”

PC Brown grabbed hold of the officers and the woman – by this point one of the PCs was struggling with exhaustion and had gone under the water – and told them to link their arms to make a train. He then guided them back the 200 metres to shore.

"It was freezing," recalls one of the officers. "I was knackered... Dan was literally lifesaving."

Ambulances were waiting and the woman received the medical assistance she required. The PCs were checked over by the ambulance crew, as both officers were suffering the effects of the cold water and fatigue.

They went home to get changed and then returned to continue their duty.  

When he heard they’d been nominated for a Bravery Award, PC Brown said: “I’m pleased we got recognised for it, because I think a lot of what the police do goes unnoticed.”

One of the officers said: “It’s nice to actually be recognised for doing something that’s made a difference to someone’s life, because if me and my colleagues hadn’t made the decision that night to go in, she’d probably have died.”

Essex Federation Chair Laura Heggie said: “What life saving heroes these officers are. Without the intervention of these three officers, who selflessly entered the water in dark and challenging conditions, this incident was extremely likely to result in tragedy. 

“Officers are advised of the dangers of entering the water… but the officers made the courageous decision to do what they had to do to save a woman in clear mental health distress. We are very proud of them.”    

PC Brown and his two colleagues will attend the 2025 Essex Police Federation Bravery Awards on 15 May. At the event an overall winner or team will be announced, who will travel to London for the National Police Federation Bravery Awards in July.

The Essex Police Federation Bravery Awards are in association with The National Police Healthcare Scheme.

Also sponsoring the awards are Metfriendly, No1 Copperpot Credit Union, Serve and Protect Credit Union, Uniform Mortgages, Police Mutual, Niche, THB Legal, George Burrows and Arc Legal.

If you are affected by this story, please contact the Samaritans https://www.samaritans.org/.