Criminals who kill our officers must get life
LIFE imprisonment must mean life for anyone who kills a police officer, one of Britain’s most senior force chiefs demanded yesterday.
Nick Adderley, chief constable of Northamptonshire Police, slammed yesterday’s verdict in the Andrew Harper trial.
Speaking exclusively to the Daily Express, Mr Adderley said: “Listening to the verdicts of those accused of the murder of PC Andrew Harper, a cold chill ran down my spine.
“I have held the belief that any person who in the act of a crime kills a police officer should be sentenced to life imprisonment, particularly if it can be shown that the suspect was in the act of committing a crime at the time.”
Mr Adderley said the case had brought back harrowing memories of the killing of two female colleagues.
He was the Commander for Tameside in Greater Manchester when PCs Nicola Hughes and Fiona Bone were shot dead in a cowardly ambush by killer Dale Cregan in September 2012.
Cregan later turned himself in, admitting to killing PCs Hughes and Bone in a revenge attack claiming police were victimising his family.
Astonished
He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order in June 2013.
Yesterday’s verdict saw travellers Henry Long, 19, Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, both 18, hug each other in jubilation as they were cleared of murdering PC Harper by dragging him to his death behind a car they were driving.
PC Harper suffered catastrophic injuries after his ankles got caught in a strap that had been towing a stolen quad bike.
Instead, the trio were convicted of the lesser crime of manslaughter.
The verdict sparked widespread fury and condemnation, led by the slain constable’s wife of just four weeks, Lissie, who said outside the Old Bailey: “I am immensely disappointed with the verdict.”
After the verdict, former Met Police Sergeant Graham Wettone said: “They should face a whole life tariff for killing a police officer.
“This case shows the recklessness of their actions. Criminals do not fear the consequences of the justice system at the moment.
“By killing a police officer, you are not only taking someone’s life. You are killing someone who represents law and order and someone who protects victims and others from harm.
“These people are content to do time because they know they will get out.They don’t care. I would be shocked if Andrew Harper’s killers served 20 years. I would be astonished. The starting tariff for killing a police officer should be life, but with a minimum term that they must serve.”
Former Special Branch officer Chris Hobbs added: “If someone assaults a police officer, and as a result of a deliberate act of violence that police officer dies, they should
face life in prison. In this case, that would fit that category.
“There needs to be a deterrent. Anyone who attacks a police officer should also be automatically sent to prison.”
The behaviour of Long, Bowers and Cole, who have smirked, laughed and joked since their arrests last year, has been widely condemned. In one picture that
shocked Britain, shackled Bowers was seen flicking V signs and sticking his tongue out at photographers as he arrived at Reading magistrates court for a hearing in September last year.
When PC Harper’s body was described as being like a “deer carcass”, Bowers, Long and Cole smirked in the dock.
Long, 19, has four convictions for
five offences, all as a juvenile. He admitted manslaughter but was acquitted of murder.
Illiterate travellers Bowers and Cole were convicted of manslaughter after the jury deliberated for 12 hours and 22 minutes.
Long and Bowers, both of Mortimer, Reading, and Cole, of Bramley, Hampshire, will be sentenced on Friday.