HARROWING accounts of the terrifying ordeal suffered by police officers during the Capitol insurrection riots on January 6 were yesterday given before members of the House of Representatives.

Testifying to the House Select Committee set up to investigate the riots, four police officers spoke of the effects the insurrection had on them at the time and which are still happening to them.

US Capitol Police sergeant Aquilino Gonell wiped away tears as he told the committee: My fellow officers and I were punched, pushed, kicked, shoved, sprayed with chemical irritants and even blinded with eye-damaging lasers by a violent mob who apparently saw us law enforcement officers, dedicated to ironically protecting them as US citizens, as an impediment in their attempted insurrection”

Despite his own attempts and those of his supporters to keep his name out of the hearings, former president Donald Trump was immediately at the centre of debate. Republican representative Liz Cheney, who has made no secret of her dislike and disdain for Trump, asked Gonell: “When you share with us the vivid memory of the cruelty and the violence of the assault that day and then you hear former president Trump say, quote, ‘It was a loving crowd. There was a lot of love in the crowd,’ How does that make you feel?”

“It’s upsetting,” Gonell said. “It’s a pathetic excuse for his behaviour, for something that he himself helped to create, this monstrosity.

“I’m still recovering from those hugs and kisses that day. If that was hugs and kisses, then we should all go to his house and do the same thing to him. To me, it’s insulting, it’s demoralising because everything that we did was to prevent everyone in the Capitol from getting hurt. And what he was doing instead of sending the military, instead of sending the support, or telling his people, his supporters, to stop this nonsense, he egged them to continue fighting.”

The continued denial of the insurrection by supporters of Trump provoked other strong reactions from the police officers. Pounding the witness table, Washington DC police officer Michael Fanone’s voice rose to a shout: “The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful.

“Nothing, truly nothing has prepared me to address those elected members of our government who continue to deny the events of that day. And in doing so betray their oath of office.”

Washington police officer Daniel Hodges told of his skull being crushed by the invaders and how he could “only scream for help".

Officer Harry Dunn of the Capitol Police gave upsetting testimony about his confrontation with racists.

“Dunn said that the crowd of around 20 people were screaming “Boo, f****** n*****. No-one had ever, ever called me a n***** while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer.”

The committee is still to decide on whether to call Trump himself, but the Department of Justice is to allow former Trump officials to give their accounts of what exactly he did or did not do to incite the riot.

That decision may well prove crucial to the committee’s findings and to the future of the 45th president himself.