Pc’s widow writes to Johnson in call for retrial of husband’s killers
PC ANDREW Harper’s widow has written to the Prime Minister to ask for a retrial after her husband’s teenage killers were cleared of murder.
Lissie Harper had been married to Pc Harper for just a month when he was killed by Henry Long, 19, and 18-year-olds Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers as they tried to steal a quad bike. Pc Harper, 28, was dragged for more than a mile along country lanes in Berkshire when he became entangled in a tow rope attached to the teenagers’ getaway car.
An Old Bailey jury acquitted all three defendants of murder on Friday, instead convicting Cole and Bowers of manslaughter. Long had previously pleaded guilty to the same charge.
In an open letter posted on her Facebook page on Tuesday evening, Mrs Harper wrote to Boris Johnson, Home Secretary Priti Patel and Lord Blunkett urging them and others “to right such a despicable wrong for our country” by ordering that a retrial
‘I implore you to hear my words, see the facts that are laid out before us.’
of the case should take place. Appealing to them, she wrote: “I implore you to hear my words, see the facts that are laid out before us, and I ask with no expectations other than hope that you might help me to make these changes be considered, to ensure that Andrew is given the retrial that he unquestionably deserves and to see that the justice system in our country is the solid ethical foundation that it rightly should be. Not the joke that so many of us now view it to be.”
The original trial was abandoned the day the country went into lockdown in March, while Mr Justice Edis ordered extra security measures for the retrial amid fears of potential juror intimidation by supporters of the defendants.
A female juror was discharged just a day before the remaining 11 started deliberating on their verdicts after she was seen by a prison officer to mouth “Bye boys” to the teenagers in the dock.
The defendants, who had previously been seen laughing in the courtroom, hugged each other after the verdicts were returned following more than 12 hours of deliberations by the jury.
Speaking outside court, Mrs Harper thanked the police and prosecution who had “stood in our corner and fought to make sure these men were made to repent for their barbaric crimes”.
Long, Cole and Bowers face sentencing tomorrow.