Video footage of a Catford police officer rushing into a burning building to save a group of people has been released.

Just after midnight on May 18, PC Neil Dobson was called to London Road in Croydon to deal with an unrelated incident when a member of the public ran over to him, saying that his friend was trapped in a flat fire across the road.

"A group of officers ran to the fire and dragged the friend from out of his kitchen," Mr Dobson said.

"Then the same guy told us there were more people upstairs who were still asleep."

Without hesitation, the officer ran into the house and begun breaking in doors and getting people out.

The footage, released by the Met, showed Mr Dobson racing up the stairs to evacuate people.

"I kicked in about three or four doors and one had a mother and her baby inside," the officer said.

"We seemed to have cleared everyone, but then I came back to the first floor and they were having some trouble opening the last door."

Mr Dobson was able to break open the door, and found nobody inside.

But by this point the smoke had become thick enough that he couldn't see the exit.

"My eyes were stinging and I did start to panic a little bit," he said.

"I just had to follow the voices and luckily found my way out."

Your Local Guardian: PC Dobson and Monty

PC Dobson and Monty

After he got out, it was back to work for the officer, who was rostered on for another four five hours.

"The adrenaline didn't really stop until I ended my shift and felt my foot really hurting from kicking the doors in," he said.

"I was a bit worried that I might have missed someone and wanted to make sure that nobody had died."

He later found out that nobody had been injured as a result of the fire,

He said he didn't tell friends or family about what happened for nearly a week.

"Finally a friend text me saying he saw an article on the Met website," Mr Dobson said.

"It was a bit embarrassing really as I was just doing my job."