A British man who moved to Australia and became a respected police officer has died in a freak accident at his engagement party after falling and cutting his neck.
Liam Trimmer, 29, and his fiancée, a nurse, threw a party on Sunday at their home in Western Australia to announce to family and friends that they were getting married.
But in a freak mishap, the constable slipped and fell to the ground. He reportedly cut his carotid artery and died from massive bleeding. An inquest has been opened.
Mr Trimmer had emigrated around a decade ago to start a new life and joined the police in Western Australia.
He graduated from the state’s police academy, about 20 miles north of Perth, in 2013.
In 2017, he moved to the outback mining town of Kalgoorlie, 370 miles east of Perth, where he joined the local rugby team. He was a member of the police force’s tactical response group.
He featured in the BBC programme Wanted Down Under, in which British families were given a taste of life in Australia and New Zealand before deciding whether to emigrate. He gave advice to a British teenager about what to expect if she moved to Australia.
“Everything was done to try and save him, but it wasn’t to be,” said Col Blanch, the commissioner of Western Australia police.
“I know everyone that was involved are really, really hurting. I think they wish they could just wake up from this nightmare.”
The commissioner described Mr Trimmer as an extraordinary officer and “a very, very confident, capable young man with his whole life ahead of him. That’s how sad this is. It’s such a tragedy.”
Rita Saffioti, the deputy premier of the state, described the police officer’s death as “an awful, awful tragedy”.
