PC Liam Cromack was verbally abused yesterday outside the Tesco Express on Castle Road.

Yesterday, PC Liam Cromack visited the Tesco Express on Castle Road to buy some food and drink.

The officer was working a 14-hour shift and sat in his vehicle to quickly eat his sandwich before attending his next incident.

A member of the public who saw him during his break started to verbally attack him.

Liam said: "I nipped out to Tesco in between jobs and this guy came out of the pub right opposite and started filming me and shouting across the road. I thought 'what's he doing?'.

"He was saying stuff like 'You should be working. I pay your wages, you should be out working'.

"I finished my sandwich and went up to talk to him and he said again that I shouldn't be sat in the car eating my lunch and that I was taking up a parking space. Then he went back to the pub.

"It's just silly. It frustrates me a little bit because as a police officer we work minimum 12-hour shifts and it's quite hard to work all those hours without food or drink.

"I literally had 10 minutes to eat something before my next job."

Verbal abuse against officers is not uncommon. Incidents of this kind tend to happen on a Saturday night when police are out patrolling the town.

Liam explained: "If someone is on a night out and they drink too much and become violent then we intervene and handcuff them.

"In order to do this safely we have to have one officer per limb to minimise the risks of them getting injured but also to protect ourselves but people don't see that.

"They start filming us or shouting at us because to them it's like 'oh why do you need six people to deal with one?' They don't see that we're doing it for their safety."

Overall, Liam said, the majority of the public are highly supportive.

"As officers we see some pretty upsetting things so it's good when the public come to us to say they appreciate what we do. It sort of reminds you of why you do the job.