Geisha Kow­lessar

Sad­dened over the sense­less killing of Po­lice Con­sta­ble El­ton John, act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er James Philbert has pledged to look af­ter the wel­fare of John's chil­dren.

The top cop yes­ter­day in­sist­ed that John's death must not be in vain. Philbert said the Po­lice Ser­vice al­ready had cov­ered the fu­ner­al ex­pens­es but plans were be­ing fi­nalised to en­sure the fu­ture of John's chil­dren was se­cure. He said: "The fam­i­ly is ob­vi­ous­ly still in grief but we are seek­ing the wel­fare of the two young chil­dren.

"They have to go to school and the fam­i­ly will need coun­selling. We are look­ing in­to these things." Say­ing John died be­cause he placed "du­ty be­fore self," Philbert said the de­sire to as­sist the fam­i­ly stemmed from a good­will ges­ture. "These chil­dren have no fa­ther. Their fa­ther was their pri­ma­ry care­giv­er and now he's gone.

"Con­sta­ble John must not die in vain and we will do what­ev­er we can to en­sure the prop­er wel­fare of his chil­dren and en­sure they have prop­er school­ing," Philbert as­sured. He said plans were be­ing dis­cussed with the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties, in­clud­ing the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion.