Some images are etched into our collective memory. Pictures such as the one of Lissie Harper so happy after marrying her childhood sweetheart PC Andrew Harper, which was released by her after he was killed in the line of duty.
She so tiny as she reached up to kiss her new husband who towered over her with his arm wrapped tight around her.
Nor can we unsee the video online of two of her husband’s killers, Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers both 17 in 2020, laughing as they were taken down after being sentenced to 13 years each for his manslaughter.
The couple had been married for only four weeks. They had not even had a chance to go on their honeymoon and were about to do so.
But four hours after his shift had ended, PC Harper had responded to a late-night call about a stolen quad bike. Only to be dragged by a car to die down a country lane as the two teenagers and the vehicle’s driver fled the scene in Berkshire.
So when Lissie was informed her husband’s monstrous killers were set for early release under Labour’s ‘progressive’ prison policy, her cry of outrage and pain was so primal it reverberated throughout the nation. We all felt it.
She condemned the decision as ‘deplorable’, accusing politicians of ‘making decisions from behind a desk that will have real and lasting consequences for victims’ families like mine’.
She added: ‘It has taken me years to rebuild a life that was torn apart in a matter of moments. Years to pick up the pieces left behind by the actions of men who stole our future.’
This image of Lissie Harper leaning up to kiss PC Andrew Harper on their wedding day will stay etched in our memories. He was killed before they could even embark on their honeymoon
Another image we won’t forget is the one of Albert Bowers (left) and Jessie Cole (centre) laughing as they were taken down after being sentenced to 13 years each for his manslaughter
Small comfort for Lissie that the driver of the car, Henry Long, is serving a longer sentence and is so far ineligible for early release.
The fact is that Andy Burnham’s Labour was preparing to release his co-killers before they had even served half their sentence – and almost certainly would have done so had she not spoken out.
Our new unelected PM, Andy – as he prefers to be called – could have put an end to the notion of early release as soon as he took power.
Perhaps he was too busy visiting homeless shelters and playing the man for all seasons, pulling pints in a pub.
It was only when tiny Lissie unleashed her scorn over him and his ilk that he took notice.
She shamed him into executing a screeching U-turn and he announced he would hold back the early release scheme until it has been reviewed. It meant two of her husband’s killers would remain in prison – for now.
How ironic that a young lass who once designed wedding cakes for a modest living should be the one to show our new PM what justice really means.
Driven by her sense of loss and injustice she successfully campaigned for years for Harper’s Law – a mandatory life sentence for anyone who kills an emergency worker in the line of duty – and it was passed four years ago, gaining her an MBE in the process.
As Lissie devastatingly declared this week: ‘For victims’ families this is not about politics. It is about whether a sentence means what a judge says it means. It is about whether justice means something we truly believe in.’
Adding passionately: ‘Andrew deserves better. Every victim deserves better. And the British public deserve a justice system they can have faith in.’
Her words echoed the anger of millions of Brits who feel let down by the system, not just Lissie but the countless victims of crime who are appalled that we let rapists and sex offenders and cop killers out half way through their sentences.
Lissie has spoken out publicly since her husband’s brutal murder, calling Labour’s early release decision ‘deplorable’ and branding Andrew’s killers ‘the men who stole our future’
‘How ironic that a young lass who once designed wedding cakes for a modest living should be the one to show our new PM what justice really means,’ writes Amanda Platell
True, our new man of the people has at least paused this early release scheme after Lissie’s outburst. But it’s not a review we need – the scheme should be scrapped without hesitation.
Unless Andy truly takes Lissie’s message on board, the ‘hope’ he promised us this week on the steps of Downing Street will prove nothing of the sort.
Or, to put it another way, if he fails to listen to her, the Messiah from the North will have proved himself utterly hopeless.
Why women love Amanda
55-year-old Amanda Holden shows off her figure while on holiday to Greece. Is she the Insta Bikini Queen?
Is Amanda Holden, 55, battling 61-year-old Liz Hurley for the title of Insta Bikini Queen?
Posting pics of herself in an itsy bitsy on a yacht in Greece, the happily married mum of two jokes: ‘And so begins the annual onslaught of bikini shots – you have been warned!’
My money’s on Amanda because, unlike Liz, she’s down to earth with a self-deprecating sense of humour and women actually like her.
Even after Robbie Williams’ weedy World Cup performance, the singer says he wants the Glastonbury Legends slot next year. ‘If they saw me do it, I would take their heads off,’ he said. What, nodding off to sleep Robbie?
Matt as hunky hero? He was Bourne to do it
Following the release of The Odyssey men want ‘Matt Damon arms’.
Crikey, why has it taken more than two decades after he stripped off in The Bourne Identity in 2002 for everyone to realise how ripped he is?
Anyway, Matt will need strong arms to carry his share of the $303million the movie made in its first week, a sum that’s expected to grow by $70million this weekend.
Since starring in The Odyssey, Matt Damon (left) has gained attention for his muscular arms, but fans of The Bourne Identity will already be familiar with them…
Much nostalgia after the death of Kevin Keegan as friends recall his sporting genius and decency. Me? I remember him as the man who back in the Seventies popularised the bubble perm – I loved a football perm back in the day. Kev said it made him feel 6ft tall, like a Coldstream Guard, although when his wife saw it she couldn’t stop laughing for 20 minutes.
Meghan’s Insta war
Meghan posts pictures of the back of her kids on their UK trip as they’re walking down an avenue of trees believed to be Althorp, where Harry’s mother Diana is buried.
They show Dad and Archie carrying bouquets of flowers and were snapped, coincidentally, the day after Kate released her own pictures marking Prince George’s 13th birthday.
Can Meghan not help herself trying to out-Insta Kate – not least with her kids’ concealed faces suggesting they are more important and more of a security risk than George?
TV star Vanessa Feltz, 64, will be pivoting to YouTube, to host a new show called At Home With Vanessa
After being axed from her TV show, Vanessa Feltz has picked herself up, regrouped and will be broadcasting her new offering At Home With Vanessa on YouTube, interviewing celebrities from her bedroom.
Good luck girl, although even as a born survivor you must realise that, now you’re 64 and single, it’s harder to entice anyone into your bedroom.
Great to see King Charles indulging his quirky sense of humour by arriving with Camilla in a Tardis for the opening of the Commonwealth Games. Although it’s not quite up there with Queen Elizabeth ‘jumping’ from a helicopter, with Daniel Craig as James Bond, for the opening of the London 2012 Olympic Games, it brought a smile.
Madeleine McCann’s brother Sean, 21, who was two when his sister disappeared, explains how he got to swim for Scotland at the Commonwealth Games. He began competitive sport at eight and never stopped, getting up at 4am most mornings to train for more than 20 hours a week, while studying at university.
Many children having suffered the loss of a sibling might never recover emotionally. So what a testament Sean is to Kate and Gerry McCann’s strength.
Westminster wars
- Andy Burnham’s team had been planning to knife Keir Starmer for more than a year – which now casts suspicion on John Healey and his ‘surprise’ appointment as Chancellor. A lifelong Burnham ally, it was Healey who triggered Starmer’s exit with a defenestration of the then PM over the defence budget and his ‘honourable’ resignation as Defence Secretary on June 11. Then, little more than a month later, he gets the keys to No 11. Was he so honourable after all?
- Clever of Andy to choose hefty bruiser Anneliese Midgley as his Chief Whip. She stomped into Downing Street like a cage fighter. If she can’t whip MPs into submission, she can just sit on them.
Having worked with Ann Widdecombe for years, my only consolation after her brutal murder is that the staunch Roman Catholic’s faith would have meant that, even as her attacker struck, she’d have firmly believed her last journey on Earth would be into the arms of a loving Christ.
Hopefully Ann Widdecombe’s unwavering Catholic faith will have brought her some solace in her awful final moments on Earth, says our columnist
Anger over killer Axel’s move
To the despair of the families of the three girls he murdered, Southport killer Axel Rudakubana – who was sentenced to life – has been moved from Belmarsh prison to Broadmoor psychiatric hospital over fears for his and others’ safety. Now he’ll be spared the true justice he deserves from Belmarsh inmates, even the most hardened of whom despise child killers.
With a hosepipe ban upon us, one canny but distant acquaintance of mine thinks he’s found a way around it. Drill a hole in the back of a watering can, feed the hose through it then pretend to refill it at regular intervals. Although I’d never condone such action.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login