As a cop and a compassionate person her instinct kicked in when she saw a man lying motionless in the road. Police officer Michelle Murphy stopped her van and went to investigate.
But for her show of humanity and professionalism she was to pay a heavy price. Within moments she had been viciously mauled by an out of control dog belonging to the man she was trying to help.
She needed urgent hospital treatment, spent 12 weeks off work, and was left with permanent injuries to her left leg. But the trauma of that night goes even deeper. She believes that without the back-up of colleagues she may have been killed by the animal.
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Assaults on Greater Manchester police officers have soared since harsher penalties were introduced - as evidence suggests new even tougher punishments will not prevent attacks on police and other emergency workers.
Despite having two dogs of her own she has been left terrified of other dogs and has switched to CID instead of frontline policing. Her ordeal began one night in September last year.
Michelle was near the end of her shift, driving back to her HQ. But on the way she received a call to respond to a warring neighbours dispute.
She redirected the van she was driving and headed towards her last job of the night. But as she drove along Thicketford Road in Tonge Moor, Bolton, she saw a body lying in the street.
The "body" was Bordeane Rostron, who had been drinking. With him were his two dogs, a tiny pup, and a powerful bulldog-type breed, both were roaming free with no lead or collar.
Michelle, 35, and a mother-of-two who joined GMP in 2009, said: "I was working with a relatively new officer, driving a van. We were on our way in because it was near the end of our shift. Control called and said on your way in would you be able to deal with neighbours in dispute with each other - noise nuisance - an easy quick job.
"But on the way on Thicketford Road we found this guy lying face down in the street with two dogs around him. It was about midnight. He was completely in the middle of the road. There was one considerably sized dog, and another of similar breed, but a puppy.
"I remember saying on my radio you will have to get someone else to deal with this job because I don't know if this man is dead in the road. I got out of the van, and I was thinking has someone attacked him, has someone in a car hit him and driven off."
When she realised Rostron, who had a gash on his head, was drunk she asked him several times to control his dogs which began jumping up at her. The adult one, Bobo, was powerfully built and muscular.
"The dog was jumping at me but I brushed it off," Michelle explained. "Then completely separate to this incident this white car came careering around the corner. There was a man, a woman, and a lad in the car. The woman screamed at him (Rostron) saying his dog had just attacked her son, who she was looking for. I asked for another police unit for support.
"I had two dogs I could not control, Rostron with a head injury, and another potential victim somewhere. The next thing the bigger of the two dogs for no reason grabbed my left leg and in less then two seconds I was on the ground. It literally dragged me to the ground, into the road, and I am not a child, but an eight stone woman.
"It was painful because it was repeatedly biting me, then it took hold of me and started shaking my leg around. My colleague, who was a well built male officer, lay down on my leg so the dog could not shake it.
"He was punching the dog in the face repeatedly and it was having no affect. I screamed at him to spray it with an incapacity spray, which he did. That got it off me and I had five seconds to run to the van before it was behind me again. Probably due to an adrenalin thing I was able to move despite by injuries. I thought, 'if I don't move I will never move again'."
"Throughout this Rostron was doing nothing. He made no attempt to get hold of his dog. At this point lights were going on in people's houses because I was screaming because I was so frightened."
Her police trousers now shredded and soaked in blood she pressed her emergency button - only the second time in her career that she had done so. On the previous occasion she was being strangled by a suspect while dealing with a domestic dispute.
Her "officer down" call triggered a huge response from all other officers in the area, including two dog handlers who were dealing with a "thieves on" situation but switched to help her. "Everyone responded which is the nice thing about the police. It made me think had I just been walking down that street in shorts and a T-shirt that dog would have killed me. I wouldn't have had 30 people turn up to help me. I had the luxury of other officers coming at 90 mph across Bolton to help me.
"When the other officers arrived they were banging on the van wanting to give me first aid but I refused to get out until the dog was secured somewhere. One of the officers got a fire extinguisher from the car, sprayed it in the dog's face, and it took four of them to get it into a van. At this point it had gone frenzied."
In a victim impact statement submitted to court and addressed to Rostron, Michelle said: "My colleague, a grown man, cried at the scene because he felt he had let me down; when in fact he didn't, his actions probably saved my leg from being ripped off by your dog. You let me down, nobody else.
"I have recurring thoughts that if your dog had grabbed me by the throat and not the leg, it would have killed me."
Michelle claimed the only time Rostron showed any emotion was when his dog was taken from him by police. She was given emergency first aid at the scene and then taken to hospital.
"There was one significant injury on the front of my leg. Because the dog had bitten me so deeply it couldn't be stitched because there was no muscle left to stitch it to. That had to be constantly redressed because it was a hole you could put your finger in.
"The back of my leg was stitched. The back of my leg is all disfigured. What has caused the permanent damage is that the muscle was ripped from my bone. I now have no feeling in the back of my leg and between the two bite marks on the front of my leg and that will never come back. I have permanent nerve damage now."
When she returned to work she did so at the force's Economic Crime Unit as she could not handle directly dealing with the public on the street. She returned to the Bolton division later this year, working for CID. "It is a happy medium for me. I have served the majority of my time in investigative units. I still want that interaction with the public. I still want to deal with suspects. But at the minute, rightly or wrongly I can't be first on the scene to something."
Michelle owns two dogs, a labrador and collie cross, Mabel, and a rottweiler, Daisy. But when she takes them for a walk with her children she "runs away" if other dogs approach. And earlier this month an incident revealed the deep-seated damage the attack has done to her.
She was at GMP's Sedgley Park training centre when during a morning break she was outside. "A police German Shepherd was with its handler about 30ft away but off its lead and ran towards me, probably just to say hi, I am more than aware it is trained to the highest standard. I was on the phone coincidentally to the Dog Legislation officer about the court case, so I was already wound up. Then I had this dog running towards me and I screamed.
"That would not be a normal reaction for me, I have dogs of my own. I had to put in an urgent referral for a PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) counsellor at occupational health because the woman who witnessed it who was taking my course said that was not a reaction she would expect from anybody. I doubt the police dog had any intent to cause me harm, but due to my fear I am unable to act in a logical way. I don't want any dog running towards me at the moment other than my own.
"If I am out on a walk I am the kind of person who would talk to the dog before talking to the owner - I am not now."
In a fresh impact statement after the incident involving the GMP dog she says: "I will not let one incident by someone so insignificant in my life destroy me, however I am currently finding that extremely difficult."
Her dedication to her job has not diminished but she admits: "Now when I finish my shift I just want to go home. I don't care what role I do or what rank I am. You just wonder what's it all for.
"I have another job, I work part time as a carer, but I could not do that for 12 weeks, so that annoyed me, because the social care system is under so much pressure they can't afford to lose a carer. It was just infuriating that for 12 weeks my whole life stopped.
"I can't go for a dog walk without worrying. I don't like my children to be around other dogs because of this, which has never happened in their entire childhood. If I see other dogs coming towards us I start running, which I have done with my own children, which is embarrassing."
One thing which baffles her is the absence of concern by the owner of the dog. "If it had been one of my dogs I would have gone into Bolton police station and asked 'how is she'. He never once inquired about my welfare and that goes against all that I am as a person. I said in witness statement he had made me not fearful not of dogs but of humankind.
"I stopped when I saw him in the road because I was concerned for him. When you have vocational jobs like the police and being a carer you just want to help. No one joins the police for the money."
At Bolton Crown Court today Rostron was given a 12 month jail sentence, suspended for two years. He was also banned from owning dogs, and a destruction order was issued on his dog. Rostron, of Firwood Grove, Tonge Moor, was convicted of being the owner in charge of a dog dangerously out of control and causing serious injury.
Defending, Martin Sharpe said that Rostron “sincerely apologises to the officer and wants to make it clear that this is a public apology”. He added: “He wished this never happened and he wishes to place on the record his sincere apologies for the severe discomfort and long-lasting harm that Ms Murphy is suffering.”
Under the Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, the maximum penalty for common assault and battery on an emergency worker has increased from 12 months to two years in prison, from Tuesday, June 28. That is four times higher than that for common assault on any other person who is not a 999 worker.
It comes as recorded crime data shows attacks on police officers in Greater Manchester have increased by 35% since a previous rule change in 2018 - when the maximum sentence for assaulting an emergency worker was raised from six months to 12 months.
That year there were 1,077 assaults on officers. That increased by 33% in 2019 to 1,433, but then fell by 7% to 1,330 assaults during the first year of the pandemic - bucking the national trend. In 2021, there were 1,451 assaults including 64 that left a constable suffering injuries.
The Police Federation - which represents rank and file officers - has long campaigned for harsher penalties for violent offenders who assault officers. But there has been no reduction on a national level in officer assaults following the sentencing increase. Attacks went up across all England and Wales by 6%, from 30,121 assaults in 2018 to 31,928 the following year.
In 2020, attacks on officers increased again, by 15% to 36,733 assaults, although this is likely down to the pandemic when officers were responsible for ensuring members of the public stuck to self-isolation rules. But even as restrictions have been eased and responsibility for policing the pandemic has phased out, attacks on officers have continued to rise - up another 8% last year to 39,605 assaults
A National Police Chiefs’ Council spokesperson said: “Assaults on emergency workers who do crucial work to keep the public safe are deplorable and will not be tolerated. This is an offence, and we will ensure that those offenders that harm our workforce are held to account for their actions."
“We welcome the increase in sentencing guidelines and will work with our criminal justice partners to ensure sentencing is appropriate to the offence committed.”
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