Within hours of being locked in solitary confinement in Leeds's notorious Armley Prison, PC Michael Bunting had already received his first death threat.

A Fair Cop is the true story of a Leeds police officer attacked and injured on an August night in 1997. Two years later he found himself defending a charge of common assault at Leeds Crown Court. He was found guilty and received a four month prison sentence. The book gives graphic accounts of life behind bars for a policeman in one of England's hardest prisons as one by one the inmates turn on him.

The idea to write the book came to Michael whilst inside after he had been subjected to his first knife attack just days after his arrival on the hospital wing in September 1999. He wrote the book using diary notes he made on toilet paper and old envelopes.

A Fair Cop was published by HarperCollins' imprint The Friday Project on 16th October 2008 and is available online and in all good book stores now. The paperback will be published on 25th June 2009.