My four-legged HERO

When Amanda Davidson lost her independence, furry friend helped her to win it back

- SERENA SHORES

As a little girl, Amanda Davidson, from Lincoln, fell in love with the idea of being a police officer. Aged three, she would even wander down to her local village station and play there happily, colouring-in and eating Smarties until her mum came to pick her up. Determined to follow her dream, she was accepted into the Metropolitan Police Force, aged 19, in 1988.

A few years later, Amanda was awarded a Commissioner’s Commendation for tackling an armed robber single-handed. Only, in 1996, a call to a domestic incident changed her life forever.

‘I went to make an arrest and ended up with my legs pinned against kitchen cabinet doors while a powerful, 6ft 6in man held my head and was stretching my neck upwards. My spine was being extended and twisted in all directions and the strain on my back was immense,’ says Amanda, 53.

‘I bear him no malice,’ she says. ‘He was mentally ill and had no idea what damage he was doing.’

However, at 29, Amanda was devastated that she had to retire from the police on medical grounds – although, poignantly, she met her husband Mark, best friends with her brother Andrew, on the very same day she left, when Andrew brought him along to help her to move from London back home to Yorkshire.

Amanda and Mark went on to have two children, Natasha, 22, and Tyler, 19, but over time the injury to her spine got worse.