A DORSET Police leader has described an award for an officer killed in a counter terrorism operation as too little too late.

Clive Chamberlain has campaigned for recognition for DC Stephen Oake since his tragic death in 2003.

Clive, chairman of the Dorset Police Federation, even handed back his own police medals in protest due to delays in a posthumous honour.

DC Oake has now been awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal but Clive said he believes he should have received higher honours.

“It is sad that it has taken nearly six years and a campaign for Stephen’s selfless act of bravery to be recognised,” he said. “I am certain that thousands believe that it should have been a George Cross, the highest award for acts of conspicuous gallantry by men and women not in the Armed Forces.”

DC Oake, a 40-year-old father-of-three and former guard to Tony Blair, was stabbed to death in a house in Greater Manchester. He was part of a team of officers trying to arrest a man in a raid linked to the discovery of deadly poison ricin in London.

His killer, terrorist Kamel Bourgass, had visited a property in Christchurch Road, Bournemouth, and had also been hiding in Weymouth in the days leading up to the murder in a bid to evade arrest.

He was sentenced in 2004 to 17 years in jail for plotting to commit a public nuisance by poisons and explosives and 22 years for the murder of DC Oake.

A long-running campaign to award DC Oake the George Cross ended when the application was rejected by a Cabinet Office committee.