Britain's new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has said he will review the government's plans to release more prisoners early, after an emotional intervention from the family of murdered police officer PC Andrew Harper reignited public anger over the policy. The move comes as the widow and mother of the killed officer spoke out against the idea that some of those responsible for his death could soon walk free.
PC Andrew Harper was 28 years old and had been married for just a month when he was killed in 2019 in Berkshire. He had gone to investigate the reported theft of a quad bike when he was dragged to his death by a getaway car for more than a mile along country roads, after his ankles became caught in a tow-rope loop trailing behind the vehicle.
The controversy was reignited after Harper's distraught mother received a letter from the Ministry of Justice informing her that two of his killers could be released early to help ease prison overcrowding. Jesse Cole and Albert Bowers, who were both 17 at the time of the crime, were jailed in 2020 for 13 years for manslaughter. The driver of the car, Henry Long, who was sentenced to 16 years, is not eligible for early release.
Under Labour's 2026 Sentencing Act, prisoners can now be released after serving as little as a third of their sentence if they have behaved well, overriding a previous system under which they were entitled to automatic release at the halfway point. According to the report, up to 6,000 offenders could be released as soon as the start of September, with those freed monitored on electronic tags.
In an emotional statement, Harper's widow, Lissy, said it had taken years to rebuild her life and that it was deplorable that releasing prisoners early was even being considered acceptable. "Andrew deserves better. Every victim deserves better. And the British public deserve a justice system they can have faith in," she said. She recalled how she had fought for Harper's Law, which introduced a mandatory life sentence for those who kill emergency workers while committing a crime, and noted she had been backed by both the then Conservative government and Labour.
Responding to the outcry, Burnham said he had spoken to the new Justice Secretary and that the two of them would review the policy together and make further statements in due course. The new Prime Minister also made clear that ministers who had apparently joked about early release when they gathered for his first cabinet meeting had behaved in a way that was not acceptable.
The reassessment leaves the new government facing a difficult balancing act. A former Conservative minister who had been commissioned by Labour to make recommendations on early release argued that the prison overcrowding crisis the country had faced could not be ignored, and that action had been necessary both to address it and to prevent future crises. With Parliament in recess over the summer, ministers have only weeks to decide how to respond before the next group of prisoners is due to be released.