Remembering North Yorkshire PC

17 June 2025

Forty-three years have now passed since a North Yorkshire PC was shot dead by a suspect he was questioning.

David Haigh, who was 29, had been sent to arrest what was thought to be a known petty criminal who was sleeping rough, but instead he found a hardened criminal asleep in his car. 

PC Haigh was shot dead next to his patrol car at a picnic site at Norwood Edge Plantation near Otley, soon after commencing duty at 6am on 17 June 1982.

Details in his notebook, of a man he had questioned at the site, led to the identification of his killer who also shot and killed North Yorkshire Police Sergeant David Thomas Winter 11 days later.

“Today we remember David and the service he gave to the Force,” says Rob Bowles, chair of North Yorkshire Police Federation.

“What should have been a fairly routine incident turned into one of the darkest episodes in the Force’s history.”