A NEW memorial to Scottish police officers is to be created to honour their achievements and help grieving families cope with their loss.

A NEW memorial to Scottish police officers is to be created to honour their achievements and help grieving families cope with their loss.

For the first time, the names of officers across Scotland who were still serving but off-duty at the time of their deaths will be added to a new wall being built at an existing memorial in Fife.

The move follows calls from mourning relatives to extend the memorial in the grounds of the police training college at Tulliallan, which until now has only commemorated officers who died in the line of duty.

Widow Christine Fulton, whose 28-year-old husband PC Lewis Fulton was stabbed to death in 1994 while answering an emergency call in the Gorbals, said the new wall would help reduce the isolation felt by relatives of officers.

Mrs Fulton said: "We are building a small wall at the entrance to the memorial garden, where people can put little plaques for their officers who have not died on duty.

"We have had so many requests from people who wanted to mark their own officers' death in some small way.

"This will give them somewhere that they feel they can go to remember their officer."

Work on the wall is expected to get under way shortly, with the first names added in the new year.

A ceremony marking the development is likely to be held next September as part of the annual Scottish police memorial service.

Assistant Chief Constable John Geates, director of the Scottish Police College, said the memorial and the remembrance service were both "tangible" reminders to surviving families that they were not alone.