‘Killer of PC should get a life sentence’
Appeal Court told jail term for dragging horror ‘too lenient’
THE killer of PC Andrew Harper should have received a life sentence, the Attorney General told the Court of Appeal yesterday.
The officer’s widow Lissie watched as Suella Braverman argued that Henry Long and his two accomplices were given sentences for manslaughter which were ‘unduly lenient’.
Long, 19, was jailed in July for 16 years after driving the car which dragged PC Harper, 28, for more than a mile along winding country roads. Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, both 18, who had been passengers, were given 13 years.
The Thames Valley officer was pulled at high speeds behind their getaway car when his ankle became caught in a tow rope as he tried to stop them stealing a quadbike in Berkshire.
Yesterday the Attorney General said the killing was ‘as serious a case of manslaughter as it is possible to envisage’.
She told the court: ‘PC Harper paid the ultimate price for his bravery and this should be reflected in the sentence.’
Referring to Long’s term, Mrs Braverman said: ‘A life sentence was the appropriate sentence for the first offender, who was and remains dangerous, if not in a case such as this, then when?’
She told Dame Victoria Sharp, Lord Justice Holroyde and Mr Justice William Davis: ‘These are sentences that have caused and continue to cause widespread public concern. It appears to me that the sentences passed on the offenders were unduly lenient.’
Lawyers representing the killers argued that public concern should not be an indicator of a fair sentence.
Rossano Scamardella QC, for Long, said PC Harper’s death was the result of a ‘freakish accident’.
She added: ‘There was no intentional application of force or violence... there was no intent whatsoever to cause serious bodily harm or death.’
Mrs Harper, 29, who had married the constable just a month before his death, launched the Harper’s Law campaign in August for automatic life sentences for killing emergency service workers.
She met Home Secretary Priti Patel and Justice Secretary Robert Buckland last month and yesterday vowed to continue her fight.
Outside the court after the hearing, she said: ‘I stand before you with my heart as heavy as it was those many months ago when I stood feeling let down and angry outside the Old Bailey.
Yet today I feel pride in myself for not settling for something that I see as unacceptable.
‘Proud to fight for my heroic husband Andrew as I also continue to push for the safety and justice of his fellow emergency services protectors in the future.
‘Reaching a step closer to a fair outcome is something that I have strived towards for a long time.
‘We have all hoped and prayed that our beloved boy’s death will not go improperly punished.
‘So we continue with our agonising battle for justice, a journey that we have had to endure for too long. The system in which we pin all of our trust and expectation has many flaws, our outdated laws fractured in the minds of our people and every family that has had to experience their effects.
‘I have every respect for the Attorney General for reaching the right decision in referring this case for review, I know that the majority of our country stands with her and me in wanting change.
‘Perhaps this may now go to show the urgency in which we need to be tougher to shield our heroes from the atrocities that they continue to face.
‘And so our battle to achieve Harper’s Law – as a fitting legacy and tribute to Andrew – will continue unabated as we await the outcome of today’s hearing.’
Prosecutors had argued the teenagers knew they had been dragging PC Harper in Sulhamstead in August last year.
But they were cleared of murder by an Old Bailey jury which had deliberated for more than 12 hours.
‘Paid ultimate price for his bravery’