THE memory of a much-respected police constable will live on in his station thanks to colleagues and friends who wanted to honour him following his death.

PC Tony Tharme died in October after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour - making his last arrest while off-duty just two weeks before his death.

The 50-year-old husband to Nicola, dad to Gabriel and step-dad to Emily had been a police officer for 14 years after more than two decades working in the NHS.

On the day of PC Tharme’s funeral hundreds of officers lined the streets outside Burnley Police Station to pay tribute to the much-loved officer - and now those same friends and colleagues have ensured his memory will live on by naming a new briefing room at the station in his honour.

Speaking about the ceremony, PC Ryan Kelly said: “I’d only known Tony around three years but the impact he had on me in that time was very significant - not only as a police officer but as a person too.

“He was a lovely bloke, everything you could hope for in a police officer. His moral compass was exactly where you’d want it to be and he was the perfect colleague.

“When he passed away it was horrible for us but the force did a really good job of representing him at the funeral and they pulled out all of the stops, it is something that he himself would be really proud of.

“I was mindful that after the funeral I didn’t want things to just be forgotten - I wanted him to be remembered in some way and that was the driving force behind getting the briefing room named after him.”

PC Kelly’s initial plan to honour his friend was by getting his epaulettes framed for the station wall - but his ideas soon grew grander once he began discussing his idea with other friends and colleagues.

He said: “I thought I’d push my luck a bit - I knew we had this new briefing room coming up so I asked if we could get it named after him.

“That was given the go-ahead by bosses and I went about getting pictures of him framed and a plaque to go up on the wall alongside the mounted frame with his collar-number.”

Another friend of Mr Tharme, PC Danny O’Reilly, spoke at the official opening ceremony where son Gabriel cut a blue ribbon to declare the room opened.

The event was also attended by a select number of Mr Tharme’s former colleagues, family and Chief Inspector Ian Cooper.

PC Kelly added: “After the ceremony Nicola messaged me and said that when Gabriel got home he told her he was proud and honoured by what he’d seen in his dad’s name - for me, that made everything worth while.”