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The MURDER of POLICE OFFICER Andrew Harper
Emma Kenny's 85-minute breakdown, the fullest single telling on file.
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On the night of 15 August 2019, police constable Andrew Harper, aged 28, was killed near Sulhamstead, Berkshire, while responding to a report of a burglary in progress. Harper had joined Thames Valley Police as a special constable in 2010, became a regular constable in 2011, and had recently transferred to the force's road policing unit. He had married his partner, Lissie Harper, less than a month before his death.
At 23:17 that night, Thames Valley Police received a 999 call reporting a burglary and theft of a quad bike near Stanford Dingley. Harper and fellow constable Andrew Shaw responded in an unmarked car. After spotting a SEAT Toledo towing the stolen quad bike, Harper left the vehicle to intercept a suspect and became caught in a tow strap. The SEAT then drove off with Harper caught behind it, dragging him roughly a mile in 91 seconds at an average speed of about 42.5 mph before he became disentangled near the junction of Ufton Lane and the A4. He was pronounced dead by paramedics at 23:45. A post-mortem gave the cause of death as multiple injuries, consistent with being dragged, including a severe brain injury.
In the hours and days following, police arrested multiple suspects, including at a caravan site located via police helicopter using thermal imaging. Ultimately, 18-year-old Henry Long and 17-year-olds Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole were charged with murder; a fourth man was charged separately with conspiracy to steal the quad bike and pleaded guilty to that charge. Charges against a fifth suspect, a 20-year-old previously charged with murder, were discontinued by the Crown Prosecution Service in September 2019.
The murder trial began at the Old Bailey in March 2020 but was disrupted first by juror illness and then by the COVID-19 pandemic, which suspended all jury trials in England and Wales. A retrial began in June 2020, during which a juror was discharged after allegedly mouthing "bye boys" to the defendants. On 24 July 2020, the jury acquitted all three defendants of murder. Long, who had previously pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and Bowers and Cole, who were found guilty of manslaughter, were sentenced on 31 July 2020: Long received 16 years' imprisonment, and Bowers and Cole each received 13 years.
Applications to appeal the convictions and sentences—including a request from the Attorney General to review the sentences as unduly lenient—were heard by the Court of Appeal in November 2020 and dismissed in December 2020, apart from a technical correction to sentencing for the conspiracy-to-steal offence that did not change the overall sentences.
Harper's death prompted public tributes, including a funeral attended by over 800 people and a "ride of respect" by motorcyclists. His widow, Lissie Harper, campaigned for a change in sentencing law for those who kill emergency workers. This resulted in "Harper's Law," enacted in April 2022 as part of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which introduced mandatory life sentences for manslaughter of an on-duty emergency worker committed during another crime. The law did not affect the sentences already given to the three men convicted in connection with Harper's death.
