A police officer has been praised for pulling a suicidal woman from a freezing canal in Semington.

Former Royal Navy sailor Roland Jones jumped into a stretch of the Kennet and Avon Canal near the A350 and pulled the 22-year-old local woman to safety.

At 1.30am on Friday, police received a call telling them that the woman was threatening to jump off a bridge. She was rescued just 45 minutes later.

Using torches, the first officers to arrive at Semington began their search of both sides of the canal.

"I walked along the towpath towards Devizes with WPC Maria Banfield," said PC Jones. "We stopped at various points and eventually heard what we thought was a shout in the distance. We told her to keep shouting and when we were about half a mile away from the road we saw her in the water.

"She was very distressed and her head kept going under so I decided I had to go in. I took my jacket and body armour off and when I got into the water she went under again.

"I was hoping she would come up as I didn't want to search for her under the water.

I swam out and thankfully she resurfaced and made a grab for me. I parried her away and then grabbed her collar and dragged her to the side, and she was pulled out."

Officers wrapped the 22-year-old, who was suffering from hypothermia, in their jackets and carried her to the waiting ambulance. At about 2.15am, she was taken to the Royal United Hospital in Bath.

PC Jones said: "Adrenaline was flowing but I didn't want to jump in at first. The water was about six-feet deep and went above my head.

"It was lucky we turned up when we did because the woman would not have got out on her own and would not be here today."

Police officers from surrounding towns arrived to help with the rescue. Sergeant Pete Sparrow, who was on duty that evening, praised the teamwork of everybody involved.

He said: "They were excellent. The woman was absolutely exhausted and would never have survived. There was no lighting in the area and it was just luck that we found her where we did.

"We don't know how she got in the water, but her friends believed she was going to jump off a bridge.

"It is one of our key priorities to save life and limb. We worked well in partnership with the other emergency services."