HERO COP ‘DRAGGED FOR A MILE’
Trio go on trial for PC’s murder
A BRAVE young police officer was killed “in the line of duty” in “truly shocking circumstances” as he tried to stop three teens stealing a quad bike, a trial has heard.
PC Andrew Harper responded to a reported theft four hours past the end of his shift when his ankles got caught in a tow rope attached to the suspects’ getaway car.
He was dragged for more than a mile of winding country road with his uniform gradually stripped from his body.
Such were the extent of the officer’s injuries an eyewitness said he thought the suspects were towing a deer carcass behind their vehicle.
The 28-year-old policeman had become dislodged by the time his colleague, PC Andrew Shaw, came across him “barely alive”.
PC Harper died at the scene a short time later.
The Old Bailey trial heard Henry Long, 19, drove at an average speed of 42.5mph along the Admoor Lane near Reading, Berks, on the evening of August 15 last year, in such a fashion that the stricken officer was “swung side-to-side like a pendulum in an effort to dislodge him”.
Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw QC said: “It was a senseless killing of a young police officer in the line of duty, a young man who was doing no more than his job.”
Long has admitted the manslaughter of the Thames Valley Police officer, but has denied intending to kill him.
He is on trial for murder, along with Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, both 18, who were his passengers at the time.
Cole, of Aldermaston, and Bowers and Long, both from Mortimer, Reading, have already admitted conspiring to steal the quad bike.
The trial continues.