An officer who witnessed the despairing efforts of paramedics to save a three-year-old girl has made a heartfelt plea for people to understand that police colleagues are “only human” after all.

PC Jade Hunter took to social media to call on the public not to act as judge and jury when spotting officers taking a break or “sitting down on the job”.

The stresses of policing can put an emotional strain on officers and that sometimes ‘time out’ is needed before moving on to another call-out, the West Yorkshire PC argued.

Writing on Twitter about the horrific ordeal, she recalled the moment she, and five other colleagues, were at an incident where a little girl was suffering from cardiac arrest.

She watched on as paramedics tried to keep the little girl alive – but tragically their efforts were in vain.

PC Hunter tweeted: “Unfortunately she didn’t make it and my heart and deepest sympathies go out to her family and friends.”

“Jobs like these are especially difficult to deal with. I cannot imagine the pain her parents and siblings are going through.

“Being a police officer is not all about catching criminals and this is a side many do not realise we do.

“So next time you pull up at a local coffee shop, or fast food restaurant, and see a couple of police cars, please don't post on social media that we're ‘having a tea break’ or ‘skiving’.

“You never know what kind of situation we have just attended and dealt with. Sometimes we need five or 10 minutes to gather our thoughts.

“The public's safety is our number one priority and it's often that after jobs like these we are right back out there dealing with the next situation that comes in.

“However, we're only human too. Please don't penalise us for having feelings.”

Her emotive post received huge support from her Twitter followers with Chris Cook agreeing “no one should ever question” taking a break while Hannah Louise Shelby admitted “sometimes public are not understanding enough of the fact police are human too”. Another said the whole trauma “must have been a terrible shock”.

One unsympathetic follower said PC Hunter’s posting was “flag waving and playing to the gallery”.