Killed a month after his wedding - why PC Andrew Harper's death touched so many

On the night of 15 August 2019, Lissie Harper got a knock at the door. She thought it was her husband Andrew coming home from work.

Instead, it was uniformed officers, there to tell her that the man she had married four weeks earlier had been killed while on police duty.

"Everything I had known in my life to be true was robbed away. Every ounce of beautiful peace, gone," Lissie later said of the moment she was told.

They had met as teenagers and were together for 13 years.

In her eulogy at his funeral, Lissie recalled how Andrew would pass her notes in class.

They were, she said, "true childhood sweethearts, loving one another more and more with each passing day".

They had been about to go on their honeymoon.

But, on that night nearly seven years ago, everything changed.

The case has been back in the headlines because two of PC Harper's killers – Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole – will become eligible to be released early under government plans to tackle prison overcrowding.

As the disturbing details of the case are revisited, his family, fellow officers and the public are outraged once more – at what happened, and at the perpetrators' impending release.

PC Harper's death was brutal and devastating, causing shock, anger and an outpouring of grief across the country.

Pictures of the smiling faces of his teenage killers laughing and joking as they left court only added to that anger.

PC Harper had been about to head home at the end of a long shift when he and a colleague were called to reports of a burglary.

He was "going beyond the call of duty", the prosecutor at the Old Bailey trial in 2020 said.

During the case, haunting dashcam footage from the police patrol car was played showing the moment PC Harper confronted teenagers Henry Long, Bowers and Cole down a dark country lane. He then disappeared from view.

His ankles had got caught in a strap trailing behind the car being driven by Long that had been used to tow a stolen quad bike.

PC Harper was dragged for over a mile. He died on the road. His police badge and stab vest were found scattered along the route.

The three teenagers were tried for murder. In the end, the jury convicted Bowers and Cole of manslaughter. Long had already pleaded guilty to that offence.

It meant the jury was not sure that PC Harper's killers knew they were dragging the officer behind the car.

But the Judge, Mr Justice Edis, described it as a manslaughter case which was "very close to a case of murder" in its seriousness.

The killers showed no remorse during the case; at times during the trial they laughed and joked around.

And not long after they had killed PC Harper, Bowers and Cole were seen laughing after one of their early court appearances.

The judge later told them he "rejected the contention" that the teenagers had shown "anything resembling remorse".

Long was jailed for 16 years, while Bowers and Cole were each jailed for 13 years.

PC Harper's death sent shockwaves across the country. His and Lissie's wedding pictures adorned the front pages, police forces and football clubs held minutes' silences and blue ribbons were displayed in his hometown of Wallingford.

His mother Debbie Adlam said she was moved by the "outpouring of love" in the days after her son died.

That response was followed by a campaign by PC Harper's family calling for tougher sentences for the killers of emergency service workers.

Disappointed with the court outcome, Lissie said she was determined to fight to "help others" and get justice for Andrew.

Though softly spoken, she was soon appearing in television and radio studios arguing her case.

Lissie eventually succeeded. Harper's Law was introduced: it meant anyone convicted of killing an emergency worker while committing a crime would face a mandatory life sentence.

The campaign was part of the reason the case "never properly left the public consciousness", according to Oxford West and Abingdon MP Layla Moran.

She said the case resonated because people felt like they were "reliving the grief with the family".

The Liberal Democrat MP, who attended PC Harper's funeral, said the prospect of Bowers and Cole being released early was "compounding injustice on injustice" and described it as a "test" of new Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

Some 6,000 prisoners had been due to be let out early under a law aimed at making space in the prisons system.

Burnham paused that policy for a review after a public backlash, with particular focus on the possible release of two of PC Harper's killers after serving half rather than two-thirds of their sentences.

But on Monday, while it was confirmed that about 1,000 prisoners would be excluded from the scheme, Bowers and Cole were not among them.

Lissie described this as "disgraceful and disgusting", while PC Harper's mother said she was "devastated".

A petition against their release has received more than 750,000 signatures.

Long, the driver, is not eligible for early release.

Recent weeks have shown just how much the case continues to stir strong emotions.

Tiffany Lynch, chair of the National Police Federation of England and Wales, said that for rank and file officers up and down the country it "feels personal" – "there is disgust, upset".

"We have a police officer who was four weeks into his marriage, dedicated to his job, responding to an incident of burglary, that our public expect of our police, has sacrificed his life in the line of duty and the people are not fulfilling their sentence," she said. "It just doesn't make sense."

Stuart Blaik, the senior investigating officer in PC Harper's case, told BBC Breakfast his killers' early release was "particularly hard to understand" and would impact police morale.

Justice Secretary Alex Norris has apologised to victims and their families and said the government was trying to avert "a prison capacity crisis".

Next weekend will mark seven years since PC Harper was killed. His family are continuing to fight in his name.

Lissie only had four weeks as his wife. Since his death, she has spent years fighting for him and his memory.

A memory of, as she said in her eulogy, a "gentle giant with a heart of gold" who "wore his uniform with pride" and "treasured family above all else".

Additional reporting by Alex Partridge.