I wish he’d been a little less brave... widow’s verdict on PC who died under getaway van
THE widow of a hero police officer who was killed on duty has said she wished he ‘had been a little less brave’ as she collected an award in his honour.
Andrew Harper died after being dragged for hundreds of yards under an alleged getaway van while responding to a burglary last August.
It is thought he was also hit by a pursuing police vehicle near Reading. He and wife Lissie had only been married for a month and were due to go on honeymoon.
Mrs Harper, 29, said he was ‘amazing’ as she accepted an honour awarded posthumously to PC Harper, 28, at a Police Federation awards ceremony in Warwickshire.
She added: ‘Andrew wanted to be a policeman since he was a little boy, fuelled with enthusiasm and a contagious love for adventure that never left him. I think if you were to have asked Andrew what the most important thing about being a police officer was, he would say protecting the innocent from harm and being the barrier of strength and accountability against the guilty.’ She added: ‘Andrew joined the police force when he was 19 years old. I wish... that I wasn’t standing up here accepting this acknowledgement on behalf of Andrew. I wish in so many ways that he had been just a little less brave.
‘But then he wouldn’t be the amazing person that he was – the silent protector going about his job without expectation or recognition.’
PC Harper’s award was for representing the ‘very best of policing’.
Police Federation chairman John Apter called him ‘a hero who will never be forgotten’. Earlier this month Henry Long, 18, pleaded guilty to PC Harper’s manslaughter but denied murder. He is due to go on trial in March alongside two 17-yearold boys who deny manslaughter.