Newlywed police officer murdered
Hero police officer aged 28 is mown down and killed in the line of duty just 4 weeks after he wed his sweetheart
FOUR weeks ago, PC Andrew Harper was posing for pictures on his wedding day.
He cut the cake with his new wife Lissie next to a sign reading ‘Happily Ever Harper’.
But yesterday it emerged the 28-year-old officer was mown down, ‘dragged along by a vehicle’ and killed while responding to a burglary.
Ten people – including a boy of 13 – have been arrested after what Prime Minister Boris Johnson described as a ‘mindless and brutal’ crime.
PC Harper and his bride were due to go on honeymoon next week, but late on Thursday night the couple’s dreams were shattered in the cruellest fashion when the officer lost his life in the line of duty.
A witness said he heard an officer yelling: ‘Stay with me, stay with me, keep breathing,’ as PC Harper lay fatally injured in the road. Last night, just over two miles from the crime scene, police were searching a rundown travellers’ site, strewn with litter and children’s toys.
PC Harper’s death triggered a fresh debate over the level of serious crime on Britain’s streets. MPs from all parties were united in their condemnation of the murder, describing it as ‘sickening’ and saying police officers had been left ‘dangerously exposed’. Home Secretary Priti Patel, who declared last month that she wanted to see criminals ‘feel terror’ on the streets, said she was ‘devastated and appalled’ by PC Harper’s murder.
Mr Johnson, who has made a pledge to hire another 20,000 police officers, said that he was ‘shocked and appalled’ and admitted that ‘we are seeing too much violent crime on our streets’.
PC Harper’s devastated family described the officer – a ‘highly regarded’ member of Thames Valley Police – as ‘the loveliest person that you will ever meet’.
PC Harper, who became a regular officer in 2011 after joining as a special constable a year earlier, had attended the reported break-in near the village of Sulhamstead, Berkshire, with a colleague at 11.30pm on Thursday night.
While it is unclear exactly what happened or what was being targeted in the burglary, PC Harper was injured on a lane just off the A4 Bath Road between Reading and Newbury – a crossroads next to the 12-bedroom Braeburn Lodge care home.
At an emotional press conference, Chief Constable John Campbell said officers were working ‘hard and diligently to find out what happened’. He said: ‘What we do know is Andrew had been dragged along by a vehicle’, adding that all ten suspects had been arrested within an hour.
A resident in nearby Burghfield said a police helicopter hovered over a travellers’ site from midnight until about 4am yesterday.
A man from Ufton Nervet, three miles from the murder scene, said the area was blighted by burglaries attributed to the camp.
‘As soon as I heard what had happened, I knew they were likely to be involved,’ he said.
PC Harper married Lissie, also 28, in Oxfordshire on July 18 in the grounds of Ardington House, a listed stately home built in 1720.
Mrs Harper posted wedding pictures online and said the couple ‘could not have asked for more’. She added: ‘The sun was shining and the venue was incredible.’
PC Harper’s uncle Dale Shrimpton, 56, said: ‘We are devastated. He was the loveliest person that you will ever meet. I can’t begin to tell you how we feel. We all loved him very much.’
Met Chief Superintendent Sally Benatar wrote on Twitter: ‘So sad to read this. PC Harper was the officer in the case when my then husband was arrested for domestic violence in 2016. He was brilliant and gave me the courage to take steps to change my life. I can’t thank him enough. He was a top officer.’
The tragedy comes after PC Stuart Outten was stabbed in the head in Leyton, East London, on August 8.
Days later, a 42-year-old West Midlands Police officer suffered serious injuries when he was run over with his own vehicle. Mr Johnson said: ‘The murder of PC Andrew Harper is a mindless and brutal crime and obviously all our thoughts are with his family, his friends and his colleagues.
‘When I think of the bravery that PC Andrew Harper showed in intercepting those criminals, I think of the risks that the police run every day to keep us safe.’
He added: ‘This is a very rare occurrence. It is an absolute tragedy that a police officer should lose his life in the course of his duties and of course we’ll do everything we can to keep our officers safe.’
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said of the tragedy: ‘Let’s just think for a moment of the horror of it, but also for the need for more police officers to be able to respond to disorder in our society.’
‘Seeing too much violent crime’ ‘We all loved him very much’