When I met Lissie Harper in No10 Downing Street in November 2021, we didn’t discuss the way in which her husband lost his life at the hands of three teenage thieves exactly seven years ago tomorrow.
We didn’t go into the details – because they were just too horrific.
Lissie had come to see me, as PM, to discuss her proposals for Harper’s Law – how to ensure that in future we properly punish criminals who kill members of the emergency services.
The widow of PC Andrew Harper was dignified, brave and determined. There was no need during the course of our conversation to ask her to relive the cruelty of her husband’s suffering. But it is important for readers to recall the essentials.
PC Harper lost his life late that August evening in 2019, in a narrow rural lane in Berkshire, after heroically trying to stop three members of the ‘travelling community’ from stealing a quad bike.
He tried to grab one of them, who dived through the rear window of the getaway Seat Toledo, shouting to his accomplices to ‘Drive, drive!’. As Henry Long, then 18, floored the accelerator, the 28-year-old police officer was tragically entangled in the towrope used to steal the quad.
For just over a mile, they dragged him behind the car, furiously weaving from side to side in an effort to shake him off. By the time they finally stopped, he was unrecognisable.
Another driver mistook the police officer’s body for the bloodied carcass of a deer.
Boris Johnson met Lissie Harper – the widow of PC Andrew Harper – at Downing Street in November 2021, when he was prime minister
PC Harper lost his life late in August 2019, in a narrow rural lane in Berkshire, after heroically trying to stop the theft of a quad bike
Of course, the criminals later claimed that they did not realise they were dragging a 14st human being behind their car; and, even if you think their denials implausible, that point was hard to establish in court – at least beyond a reasonable doubt.
But whatever exactly they knew or believed, it seemed to Lissie Harper, and it seemed to me, as I listened to her, that they were still morally culpable for his death.
They were habitual criminals who had set out to commit a serious and dangerous crime, with crowbars and other equipment in the boot. They had disabled the rear lights of the Toledo to avoid pursuit.
They had discussed what to do if the police nabbed them, and the importance of fleeing the scene at top speed. Even if – which I seriously doubt – they were initially unaware of what they were doing, they were guilty of killing a police officer in the course of criminal activity. That is, in my view, a particularly heinous crime.
A police officer – or a firefighter or a paramedic – is unlike the rest of us in that they have no choice but to go towards danger. They must deliberately put their own lives at risk – as Andrew Harper did – to protect the rest of us, the public.
That is why the law has always tried to give special protection to the police, in recognition of the risks they run every day. Indeed, it remained a capital offence – a crime that can be punished by the death – to kill a police officer until 1965, years after the death penalty was generally abolished.
So, I agreed with Lissie and the family of PC Harper, and his many supporters, that the sentences for his killers who were found guilty of manslaughter in July 2020 were too soft: only 16 years for the driver, Henry Long, and only 13 years for the two passengers, Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole. It did not seem enough, either as a punishment or a deterrent, and the killers seemed to know that they had got off lightly.
That picture of them leaving the court smirking and laughing has become shockingly familiar to us all.
Five months later we passed Harper’s Law, so that anyone who engages in a dangerous and criminal act and kills a police officer or other member of the emergency services would get a life sentence. I know that Lissie and her family took pride and comfort in their achievement – for the benefit of all families of police officers, and other emergency workers, who may lose their lives to criminals.
Jessie Cole (left) and Albert Bowers were sentenced to 13 years for manslaughter after a trial in 2020 following PC Harper’s death
I know that Lissie and her family took pride and comfort in their achievement passing Harper’s Law – for the benefit of all families of police officers, writes Boris Johnson
But of course Harper’s Law is not retrospective. We could not change the way the court had interpreted the law as it previously existed; and for years Andrew Harper’s relatives have had to face the sickening fact that his killers would be out relatively soon.
It was infuriating but unavoidable. Nothing, however, can have prepared the Harper family for the farce that is unfolding now.
Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine that a Labour government would come in and change the law – as Starmer did – to allow the release of offenders after serving only half of their sentences.
And it seems utterly incredible that this early-release scheme could apply to people like the killers of PC Harper. But that is what Labour has done.
The new PM, Andy Burnham, was specifically given the option of keeping prisoners with longer sentences in jail. He was told explicitly that this was the way to avoid releasing the killers of PC Harper.
He rejected that option. He knew exactly what that decision entailed – that Bowers and Cole would be among the thousands of serious offenders who would be prematurely disgorged on to the streets of this country, where about 25 per cent of them are statistically bound to reoffend within the first year.
He knew what he was doing, and yet he went ahead. It is only in the face of public outcry that he has backed down.
Having glibly taken the decision to release them, he now says, with equal glibness, that he could not live with his conscience if they were released. My message to Burnham is that the voters may be able to forgive your open-toed sandals – but they simply can’t stomach the flip flops.
He vamoosed for a holiday to somewhere foreign and instructed his hapless Justice Secretary to ‘find a solution’.
Find a solution? How can Alex Norris find a solution? The Prime Minister’s view of the early-release scheme is completely unintelligible. How is Norris supposed to find a solution when Burnham seems to be simultaneously in favour of the early-release scheme – and against it?
It’s Burnham who is PM, not Norris – a man who is probably not even a household name in his own household.
When you get problems like this, with officialdom saying you have no alternative, it is only the Prime Minister who can break the logjam.
Andy Burnham should scrap the early-release scheme, fast, and if he wants to show he cares and understands he should make time to meet Lissie Harper, says Boris Johnson
As Kemi Badenoch has said, there are in fact plenty of solutions. Burnham could make space in our prisons for thousands more UK criminals if he got rid of the Human Rights Act, and deported foreign offenders.
Labour could overcome their Lefty squeamishness and revive our plans to rent prison places abroad. Or they could get a grip and build pop-up prisons.
The truth is that Labour is actually indifferent to the strength of public feeling on this issue – as of yesterday, one million people had signed a petition to keep PC Harper’s killers in jail – because in their hearts they don’t care.
Burnham has specifically rejected Blair and Blairism, and it is clear that in rejecting a tough penal policy we are back to the worst of soggy old Labour – soft on crime and soft on the causes of crime.
The PM is failing his first big test. He should scrap the early-release scheme fast and, if he wants to show he cares and understands, he should make time to meet Lissie Harper.
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