Fallen officers will be remembered at COPS service
22 June 2026
Guests gathered at the National Memorial Arboretum for a COPS service of remembrance.
Police officers, representatives of other policing bodies and cyclists taking part in the annual Police Unity Tour (PUT) will join the families of fallen officers at this year’s Care of Police Survivors (COPS) Service of Remembrance.
The service will be held at the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, Staffordshire on Sunday 9 August.
Ahead of the service, cyclists taking part in the three-day PUT will ride into the arboretum to conclude a three-day journey aimed at raising awareness of officers who have died in the line of duty and boosting the funds of COPS, the charity dedicated to supporting their families. They are led into the arboretum by the Blue Knights motorcycle club.
The service, which features music from the West Midlands Police Brass Band, includes wreath-laying and moving inputs from a number of family members who talk about the impact of losing their loved ones. The president and chair of the COPS trustees also address the congregation.
Peer support
At the end of the service, everyone makes their way to ‘The Beat’, an avenue of trees each dedicated to forces nationwide and to police officers and staff who have died on duty to lay wreaths and individual red roses.
COPS cares for survivor relatives in a variety of ways, including by bringing them together with other grieving families through peer support opportunities and by offering access to counselling and specialist bereavement services.
The charity was founded in 2003 by survivor Christine Fulton MBE and the late Jim McNulty, a Strathclyde Police detective.
The first COPS Survivor Weekend was held at Lichfield, Staffordshire that year. Sixty-four survivors came to the weekend and one Chief Constable attended the Sunday service.
From there, the event has grown with the annual survivor weekend, which leads into the Sunday service, being held each year and the service attracting hundreds of guests.
