Judge speaks out on jury’s decision
Trio cleared of murdering policeman
COURTS: The judge in the case of Pc Andrew Harper has taken the unusual step of addressing the “controversy” surrounding the jury’s decision to find three teenagers not guilty of murder.
It came after Pc Harper’s widow, Lissie, called on the Government to order an unlikely retrial in the hope of securing a murder conviction.
THE JUDGE in the case of PC Andrew Harper has taken the unusual step of addressing “controversy” surrounding the jury’s decision to find three teenagers not guilty of murder, amid concerns they were being subject to “improper pressure”.
It came after Pc Harper’s widow, Lissie, called on the Government to order an unlikely retrial in the hope of securing a murder conviction.
Henry Long, 19, and 18-yearolds Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers were yesterday sentenced for manslaughter, having been cleared of murder.
Addressing the court yesterday morning, the judge Mr Justice Edis said he had deliberately avoided reading or viewing reports of the case and comment on the verdicts because his duty was to do justice in accordance with the law and the evidence heard.
On the measures put in place for the protection of the jury, he
said: “It may be believed in some quarters that the jury was subject to some improper pressure. To the best of my knowledge and belief there is no truth in that at all.”
The verdicts had been met with anguish last week from the 28-year-old victim’s widow, who said she was “utterly shocked and appalled” at the decision not to convict the teenagers of murder, adding: “I now have my own life sentence to bear.”
Lissie Harper has since called on the Prime Minister and other key figures in the Government to intervene in the case, despite a retrial being both extremely unusual and unlikely.
It is almost exactly a year since Pc Harper and a colleague responded to a report of a stolen quad bike from a property in Stanford Dingley, Berkshire, on the night of August 15, 2019.
They soon found the thieves towing the £10,000 Honda quadbike in Admoor Lane, prompting Pc Harper to get out of the police car and chase Cole, who had unhooked the rope between the Seat Toledo getaway vehicle and the stolen Honda.
Cole jumped into the Seat, past Pc Harper’s grasp, prompting Long to make off at speeds of 42.5mph, carrying the stricken policeman behind for 91 seconds.
His uniform was stripped away and he was found by colleagues unconscious and barely alive in Ufton Lane near the A4 moments
later. Despite attempts to save him, he died at the scene.
The getaway vehicle was later tracked to the nearby Four Houses
Corner caravan site. An examination of mobile phone data eventually placed all the defendants – members of the travelling community – in the Seat.
Their defence claimed the incident was a “freak event” that none of them could have planned or foreseen.
But the prosecution said that at more than 6ft and weighing 14 stone, the defendants must have been aware Pc Harper was being dragged to his death.
In his sentencing remarks, Mr Justice Edis later said: “Nothing which I can do, or could have done if there had been a conviction for murder, can restore Andrew Harper to his loving wife and family, or to the public he served so well.
“His devastating loss in these terrible circumstances will follow his family forever and they have the profound sympathy of the court and the whole nation in their loss.”
It may be believed that the jury was subject to improper pressure.
Mr Justice Edis added that there was no truth in that.