A hero cop risked his life to prevent a gas blast which could have killed him and two children.

Pc Philip Sutcliffe, 34, ran into the home in Droylsden to find the oven door open, all the gas appliances switched on and piping behind the cooker ripped from the wall. He could hear loud hissing as the property filled with gas.

Ignoring his own safety, he quickly found the mains and turned off the gas before searching the house, unaware all the occupants had already left.

He ran out and moments later was attacked by the drunken householder who had vowed to blow up the property.

Pc Sutcliffe had to restrain dad-of-two Alan Jones, 29, who wanted to go back inside to ‘burn the house down’. Jones punched the cop, who had to use CS spray before forcing him to the ground and handcuffing him.

It emerged Jones’s children, aged seven and 11, were safe next door with their grandad.

No one was hurt during the drama in October. Pc Sutcliffe’s bravery has been hailed by a judge after Jones was handed a suspended prison sentence.

Judge Mushtaq Khokhar, sentencing Jones, said: "If you had not been restrained by this officer when you tried to re-enter the house, who knows what you may have done? The slightest trigger could have caused an explosion, putting the lives of people nearby at risk – including your own children."

After the hearing, Pc Sutcliffe, a married dad-of one, said he didn’t think about his own life.

He said: "Primarily I was concerned about people who could have been in the house or next door. I just wanted to turn the gas off as soon as possible and make sure everyone was OK. I wasn’t 100 per cent sure there was no one in the house. It turned out the kids were next door. It was going through my mind that it could go up. In 11 years in the job I have never used CS spray. That’s how aggressive he was."

Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court heard how Pc Sutcliffe emerged from the house and spoke to Jones’s father, who said he had received a text from his son which read: "I’m coming back. I’m coming back now. I’m going to burn the house down. The whole house is going up."

Vanessa Thompson, defending, said Jones, who works for Greggs the bakers, could recall little but had become involved in a row with his partner.

His actions had been out of character and his memory had been ‘addled’ by drink, she told the court. Jones’s family had only moved to the house four months earlier and he had plunged £5,000 into debt trying to renovate it, the court head.

Jones, who pleaded guilty to threatening to destroy property and assaulting a police officer, was handed a 12-month suspended prison sentence. He was handed a 12-month supervision order with probation and must go on an alcohol treatment programme. He was also handed a three-month night-time curfew.

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