A fierce fiancée, positive attitude and pet cats inspire PC Wienand, the police officer known for stopping an armed robbery in his boxers.
PC Wienand had only been with his response team for two weeks when he took on five armed men attempting to steal from Barnes Jewellers in the middle of the night while he was off-duty and undressed last May.
Last month he was nominated for a National Police Bravery Award which he said he owed to his fierce fiancée Sarah, who yelled at the intruders outside before realising what was happening and waking him up to do something.
He said: “She was so fierce, I know that I owe this award to her really.
“When you have your loved one yelling at you and you can hear the fear and anger in their voice you have to do something.
“The women in my life are super strong-willed women – when they say do something you jump to it.”
PC Wienand and his fierce fiancée lived above the jewellers at the time and he said the whole building was shaking as the armed men hit the store’s shatterproof glass with pickaxes and sledgehammers.
Once he was outside one of the men threw a pickaxe at his head but he continued running towards them, cutting his feet on broken glass, as they ran away.
He said: “I was dead scared.
“I was bare-chested – much like Tarzan but without the huge muscles.”
When he turned up to duty the next day his colleagues could not believe what had happened.
But he did receive a great amount of support for which he was grateful.
PC Wienand also spoke about his positive attitude towards life and his joy at being a police officer.
He said: “Sometimes it can be difficult but I find you need to look for the bright side of life.
“I’m doing the job I always wanted to do.
“You often have the chance to make a sad person a happy person.
“A simple smile could brighten up someone’s day and it costs absolutely nothing.”
He remembered a mother asking if her son could see the inside of a police car when he was on an anti-burglary patrol and being overjoyed by the boy’s reaction.
He said: “I could just see the joy in his eyes and that means more than words can describe.
“It’s good to bring children up with the sense that police are not to be feared, they are there to help.
“If I can make a child want to be a policeman, I will be over the moon.”
PC Wienand is a fourth generation police officer and his family are overjoyed with his bravery award nomination.
His 80-year-old grandmother tells everyone about it when she goes out to walk the dog.
But there are two other family members who are proud of PC Wienand: Mr Pebbles and Electra.
He said: “I’m a cat man much to my colleagues amusement.
“They are the reason why I am probably that happy.
“I say to my colleagues, whenever you feel blue or have seen something that’s quite traumatic, stroke a cat and you can feel the stress fade away.
“So I would highly recommend it to any police officers out there, any emergency service unit really, get some cats.”
