I can’t bear to think how my son’s life was ended
I carry love note Andrew gave me as child Killers cheered like they scored in cup final I visited body four times to feel close to him
IT is a much-thumbed piece of paper – a scribbled thank you note from a thoughtful son to his mum for a surprise present she had bought him.
But for Debbie Adlam it has become a lifeline to cling to in the swell of an endless sea of sorrow. She had it in her trembling hand the day she said farewell to her boy, PC Andrew Harper, at his funeral last year. The son snatched from her by a gang of thieving teenagers in a killing that sickened Britain.
Now the words he wrote as a child in gratitude for a phone she bought him help her through the long days and nights without him.
‘ Thank you mum, you’re my mate. Thank you for my phone times infinity and for everything you do. Just remember I will love you forever, no matter what.’
“This piece of paper has become really special to me,” said Debbie. “Because in my darkest hours I know he will always love me.” Today, in a moving interview almost a year on from 28-year-old Andrew’s senseless killing, Debbie, 53, tells how she is still tortured by thoughts of his final moments as he was dragged more than a mile to his death along a country lane by a getaway car, his ankles caught in a trailing strap as he tried to stop three thugs stealing a quad bike.
She reveals she makes regular pilgrimages to the road where he died – because it helps her feel close to him.
She speaks of her anger at the sentences handed down to his killers – Henry Long, 19, and 18- year- olds Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers.
And at the sickening sight of them cheering when acquitted of murder after she was told any emotion would see her led from court.
Now Debbie is pouring her grief and fury into a campaign for tougher sentences for police killers – calling for a minimum 20 years in jail with no early release. It comes after ringleader
Long got just 16 years for Andrew’s manslaughter last month. Cole and Bowers each got 13. They were reduced from the maximum due to their ages and Long’s guilty plea. All will be eligible for release after two-thirds of their sentences in a case that sparked an outcry.
Debbie, who hopes to meet Home Secretary Priti Patel about her crusade next week, said: “They celebrated when they got manslaughter instead. It looked like they’d scored the winner in the FA Cup Final – cheering and hugging each other. Not a glimmer of remorse. Yet we were warned we couldn’t show any emotion during the case or we’d be told to leave. We had to listen to the devastating detail of what happened to Andrew and we couldn’t react.
“If we cried, we cried silently, because if we’d been visibly upset it could have been used by their defence to undermine the prosecution case. What are other criminals going to think when they see that? There’s nothing to put them off. No deterrent. There will be another case like Andrew’s. It’s just a matter of when.”
Debbie recalls the day her world collapsed last August, and how their son’s violent death – just four weeks after his wedding to childhood sweetheart Lissie – haunts her day and night.
“Two police officers came to our door and we knew instantly something was wrong,” she says. “You want to refuse to hear what they’re saying. My emotions were in no man’s land.”
At first she assumed her son had died in a car accident – then the horror of what happened gradually unfolded. A pathologist said Andrew was likely to have suffered a massive brain injury as soon as he collided with the road – and probably would have lost consciousness instantly.
But Debbie is consumed by fear that her son was awake. She said: “I wanted to know everything, but the injuries were worse than I could have ever imagined. No one can tell me 100 per cent that he knew nothing about it and I’ve always had nagging doubts. As a mum, you torture yourself. I have to train myself to think
Thank you mum. Just remember I will love you forever, no matter what ANDREW’S NOTE IT GETS MUM THROUGH HER DARKEST HOURS
he didn’t know, because thinking about him knowing about it is just too much. It has been horrendous trying to get to sleep at night hoping he died straight away.”
Shattered Debbie visited the mortuary at Reading’s Royal Berkshire Hospital four times to see his body – but her son’s injuries were so horrific he had to be covered by a sheet.
She said: “I just wanted to feel close to him. The first time I went I don’t think I even cried but the second time I was in floods.”
Debbie also makes regular pilgrimages to the road where he died near the village of Sulhamstead, Berkshire.
She said: “It’s where he took his last breath and I feel drawn there. Maybe it’s a mum thing – I still want to be with him and protect him.”
She’s also been consoled by an avalanche of support from Andrew’s colleagues, as well as other families who have lost officers in the line of duty. In the weeks after the tragedy, she received flowers from Bryn Hughes – dad of 23-year-old Nicola Hughes who was gunned down by serial killer Dale Cregan in 2012. Debbie said: “They say the police is like a big family, but it’s not until something like this happens you realise it’s true. Bryn sent flowers and I contacted him and met him about a week later. He’s been so supportive.”
Despite her anguish, Debbie has taken comfort from the outpouring of love for her son. Her home near Oxford is filled with tributes from friends and strangers – from rocks painted with his badge number to teddies made of old police uniforms.
Yet she still finds it hard to accept he has become a household name in the most horrific way. “I get on the bus and think, ‘Everyone here will have heard of my son’. But it feels like the
SO CLOSE With Andrew at his wedding
GRIEF Debbie embraces family at son’s funeral whole world is standing beside us.” She wishes the whole world had known her boy. “Andrew had a lovely character. As a child, he was a comical, cheeky chappy. “I recently found a video of him marching up and down, singing We’re Following The Leader from Peter Pan.
“He was also so protective of his brother and sisters. He’d have made a wonderful dad. There are three years between him and Sean but he loved pushing him around in his buggy and never got jealous in the way some kids do.”
Andrew became a special constable at 19 before joining the Thames Valley force full time. Debbie said: “He mentioned the Army but there was a lot going on in Afghanistan and I was trying to put him off. I didn’t really think about how dangerous the police could be.”
Although Debbie has thrown her energy into campaigning, she is still so grief-stricken she’s been unable to return to work as a university exam invigilator.
She said: “Grief is unpredictable. You don’t know at any moment how it will take you. We were shopping and I was looking at Christmas ornaments. I had to put the basket down and go. When it comes, it takes you down – and it’s so physical.
“You have times when you think, ‘I just don’t want to do this any more’. Everyone has their dark moments but your other family members stop you going too far with those thoughts.
“And I try not to think of the killers as I’d rather think about Andrew.”
And that note he wrote her as a child, telling her he would love her for ever –just as she will never stop loving and thinking of him.
No matter what.
No one can tell me 100 per cent my son knew nothing. You torture yourself...
MUM DEBBIE ON FEARS THAT ANDREW DIDN’T DIE INSTANTLY