Yahoo Sports PC Andrew Harper's widow supports full life sentences for anyone who kills while committing a crime
PC Andrew Harper's widow has said she would back tougher sentences for people who kill while committing crimes as she continues to campaign for life in prison for those who kill emergency workers.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Lissie Harper discussed her campaign for “Harper’s Law”, which would see criminals convicted of killing emergency workers, like her police officer husband, sentenced to life in prison.
A petition supporting her campaign has reached 500,000 signatures.
She denied believing emergency workers’ lives are more important than ordinary people’s, saying that “at least it might give some deterrent to people committing crimes”.
Harper then added: “If there was another law that said people committing a crime, if they take someone’s life, then they should get life in prison, then that is absolutely what should happen.”
“Ultimately it’s these people (emergency workers) that spend their days dealing with crime and with dangerous situations and they’re putting themselves in danger to protect the public.”
Her husband, PC Harper, was killed while responding to a report of a quad bike theft in Berkshire last year.
He was caught in a tow rope and dragged behind a vehicle for more than a mile as three teenagers tried to get away, suffering horrific injuries and dying at the scene.
All three were jailed for manslaughter.
Henry Long, 19, was given 16 years in prison, while his passengers Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, both 18, were each handed 13-year sentences.
Those sentences have now been referred to the Court of Appeal by attorney general Suella Braverman, while Bowers and Cole are seeking to appeal their convictions.
Harper is also due to meet home secretary Priti Patel next month.
She added on Radio 4: “With Andrew’s situation, a lot of people might look at it and think ‘They’ve taken a police officer’s life but they (his teenage killers) have only got a few years in prison’.
“So, in that way, yeah, I think it really could make people stop and think: this could take away the majority of my life.”
