Line of Duty's Vicky McClure joins police on operation as she campaigns for dementia awareness

The 40-year-old actress, who played DI Kate Fleming in BBC's smash hit police drama, visited the force to talk about her work as a dementia campaigner.

Officers also invited her to join them on a traffic operation and visit the West Midlands Police Museum in Birmingham.

McClure has worked with the Alzheimer’s Society for many years and founded the Nottingham-based Our Dementia Choir in 2019 after her late grandmother Iris was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and found comfort in music.

A BBC documentary to raise awareness of the disease culminated in the group’s performance in front of 2,000 people at Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall, and McClure later revisited the choir in 2020 to explore the effects of the pandemic on the choir.

In August 2022 she was further recognised for her work with the choir by being made an honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Nottingham – describing it as "my personally proudest day to date".

And at McClure's wedding to long-term partner Jonathan Owen earlier this month, the happy couple were serenaded by the choir.

Earlier this year, McClure urged the Government to do more for people with dementia, claiming research into "the UK’s biggest killer is currently being neglected".

The Line Of Duty star delivered a letter to Downing Street which urged Prime Minister Rishi Sunak not to let dementia "slip down the political agenda".

The letter has been signed by 36,000 people and calls on the Government to deliver on Conservative Party commitments on dementia.

Standing outside Number 10 Downing Street, McClure said: "Dementia is heartbreaking, watching a loved one not remember who you are, watching a loved one not be able to drive themselves to the shop that they’ve drove to for the last 50 years, seeing people that are diagnosed not just in their 70s and 80s and 90s, in their 40s, 50s and 60s, people aren’t getting diagnosed properly as well.

"The amount of research for the UK’s biggest killer is currently being neglected."

She added she was "aware of the mess the country’s in financially" but said: "They can afford to do something, and my emotional reaction to it is I’m fed up."

In a message to the Government, McClure added: “There will be people in there who will go through this. And often, if you’ve never been through something you don’t quite understand what it means and how it feels.

"And the feeling of losing a loved one and all of a sudden your whole world being completely shook up, you’re not going to be able to be in Parliament any more, you’re not going to be able to be an MP, you’re going to have to step away and become a carer.

"And that is going to mean you’re going to get £67.50 a week, and on top of that you’ve got to be emotionally there for your partner. The distress that it causes to families is horrific.

"We need the support to make sure people are given the simplest of things and at the moment if feels as though there is not really anything in place."