“For those we have lost, we will never forget the sacrifice they made.” That was the tone set by Chief Constable Simon Chesterman as he joined senior officers and colleagues at the UK Police Memorial in Staffordshire for a Ceremony of Remembrance. Held at the National Memorial Arboretum, the service centred on police officers and staff who died serving others. Away from Westminster set-pieces, it was a quieter public moment, built around names, families and the hard fact that service can carry a very high price.

In an official gov.uk statement, the constabulary said the ceremony came five years after the UK Police Memorial was dedicated in 2021 by HRH The King, then HRH The Prince of Wales. It also acknowledged the 4,655 names recorded in the UK Police Role of Honour, marking officers who lost their lives on or in the line of duty. That number is what gives the service its weight. Behind every name is a colleague, a family and a community that had to absorb the loss.

For the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, the remembrance was not abstract. Two of its own are recorded in the Role of Honour: PC Daryl Street, who died in 2021 following a road traffic collision while travelling home from duty, and PC Marcus Bennett, who died on duty in 2025 from a sudden medical episode. Naming them matters. Institutional language can sometimes flatten these moments, but remembrance only means something if the individuals are kept in full view.

There was a clear northern presence in the ceremony too. Inspector Ken Murray, Operational Unit Commander of Heysham Operational Policing Unit, represented the constabulary and carried the CNC flag standard, while Chesterman laid a wreath at the memorial. For readers across the North, that detail will land. Much of Britain’s public service is carried out far from the capital, by officers working demanding roles in communities and strategic sites where the job is done without much fuss.

Staffordshire’s National Memorial Arboretum was a fitting setting for that kind of remembrance. It has the national standing such an occasion calls for, but it is not sealed off from the places and people the service is meant to reflect. That regional feel matters. Ceremonies of state can often look distant, but this one stayed rooted in a civic space where the focus was firmly on service, sacrifice and the families left to carry the memory forward.

Chesterman kept his public remarks plain. He said men and women across policing serve bravely to protect communities and the country’s way of life, and that colleagues stand shoulder to shoulder with bereaved families in remembering those who have died. For the wider policing family, the Staffordshire ceremony was a reminder that remembrance is more than formal wording. It is an ongoing promise that the names will be spoken, the service recognised and the sacrifice not allowed to slip into the background.