BOBBY PC Ian Horne, who won the highest award in policing for his work with young people, has retired after 23 years on the force.

PC Horne, 52, was given the Queen's Police Medal in 2001 New Years Honours list.

The honour is usually reserved for officers of at least Chief Constable level .

The Swindon-based constable joined up in 1979 after serving as a chef in the Military Police.

He said: "I came into the police force as a career constable. I particularly liked the role. I enjoyed the prospect of working with the community all the time rather than spending time in the office."

PC Horne's career included spending a year policing the picket lines in Nottingham during the bitter miners' strike of 1984/85.

And he also had to help deal with anarchic clashes during summer solstice celebrations at Stonehenge in the 1980s.

But he said the most rewarding part of his career started in 1990 when he founded the Swindon Youth and Schools Affairs Department.

In that post he started the Junior Good Citizens Scheme, a project where children from local primary schools took part in an annual event at Wroughton Science Museum, hosted by the emergency services and other agencies.

The idea of the scheme was to teach children what to do if they found themselves in an emergency situation and it reaped literally life-saving results.

A nine-year-old girl who took part in one of the courses used the training given to save her younger brother's life after a fire in her home at Westcott Place.

He said: "The most enjoyable time I had was working with children and seeing their delight while taking part in the Junior Good Citizens Award.

"Throughout the 1990s children would often recognise me and say hello. It was good to see such a positive response to a police uniform."

He said he plans to spend his retirement "catching up on 15 years of neglect to his house" and working with disaffected young people.

He added: "I have a strong personal belief that if you can help younger people to sort themselves out, older members of society are going to be a lot better off. You can't build a house without strong foundations."

Over the years PC Horne said he had witness a change in public attitudes towards the police.

He said: "When I first joined the job, I felt being a police officer automatically earned you a high level of respect from the community at large, whereas today young officers have to earn that respect."

He said that throughout his career he followed a simple rule; to treat others as he would wish to be treated himself.

In 23 years PC Horne was only ever the subject of one complaint, for "over-officiously ringing a doorbell".

PC Horne also launched the ChildSave scheme at the Brunel Centre, following the Jamie Bulger murder.