FIVE police officers are to receive bravery awards from a national body.

The officers, based at Durham City and Seaham, east Durham, will receive commendation certificates from the Society for the Protection of Life from Fire for their actions at two house fires.

Both incidents took place last December, and the first involved PC Rick Callaghan, who was first at the scene of a blaze in Albert Street, Dawdon.

He discovered that a 15-year-old boy was trapped in a smoke-filled bedroom and, with the help of a neighbour, managed to reach him using a ladder and a wheel brace to smash the bedroom window.

The teenager was taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation, and PC Callaghan needed several stitches to cuts on his hands and face.

He said: "I was showered with glass and had to hit the window a second time to break it properly.

"Someone in the street had found a ladder, which I put up and helped the lad to climb down. I'm no hero. I did what anyone else would have done."

In the second incident, PCs Jeff Barksby, Andrew McDonald, Peter Smith and James Somersall found 66-year-old Robert Bryden and his wife, Sheila, trapped in their blazing bungalow in Grape Lane, Durham City, on Boxing Day.

They dragged Mr Bryden to safety then rescued his wife, also 66.

PC Barksby, 36, and PC McDonald, 31, have been with Durham Police for five years, while 29-year-old PC Smith spent four years with Cumbria Constabulary before transferring to Durham.

PC Somersall, 23, was a probationer constable at the time of the incident.