PC Andrew Harper’s killers will be kept in prison as Andy Burnham bows to pressure to exclude ‘hundreds’ of killers and historical child sex offenders from early release scheme
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has announced that anyone convicted of unlawful killing, including manslaughter and death by dangerous driving, will be excluded from the government's early release scheme, ensuring PC Andrew Harper's three killers remain in prison. The move follows widespread public outcry after it emerged that two of the officer's killers, Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, could have been freed halfway through their 13-year sentences under the scheme's current rules. Historic child sex offenders will also be barred from early release. The change marks Burnham's third exemption to the policy since becoming Prime Minister, after he earlier excluded rapists and child sex offenders following similar backlash.
PC Harper died in August 2019 after becoming caught in a strap attached to a car he and colleagues were pursuing following a quad bike theft in Sulhamstead, Berkshire; he was dragged along a country road to his death. Bowers and Cole, passengers in the vehicle, were jailed for 13 years, while driver Henry Long received 16 years and was already ineligible for early release. Burnham said the latest changes mean "hundreds" of offenders will now stay in prison, reducing the number expected to benefit from the scheme from 6,000 to around 5,000. He added that extra prison capacity would instead come from deporting foreign offenders and releasing some prisoners held under now-abolished Imprisonment for Public Protection sentences, with full details due when Parliament returns from recess this week.
- Burnham exempts unlawful killing convictions from early prison release scheme
- PC Andrew Harper's killers will now serve full sentences, not halved
- Historic child sex offenders also excluded; up to 5,000 still eligible
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PC Andrew Harper was a Thames Valley Police officer who died in August 2019 after being dragged along a road by a car while responding to a quad bike theft in Sulhamstead, Berkshire. Three men were convicted over his death: driver Henry Long, who received 16 years, and passengers Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, who each received 13 years. The case caused widespread public anger both at the time and again recently, when it emerged Bowers and Cole could qualify for release halfway through their sentences.
That possibility arose because of a government early release scheme designed to free up prison places by letting some offenders leave custody before completing their full term. Andy Burnham, the Prime Minister, has faced repeated criticism over the scheme's scope, and has already made exceptions for rapists and child sex offenders after earlier backlashes.
The scheme matters because it touches on a wider debate about prison overcrowding, sentencing policy and public trust in how serious offenders are treated. Ministers have said extra prison capacity is being found through other means, including deporting foreign offenders and releasing prisoners held under a now-abolished indefinite sentence known as Imprisonment for Public Protection.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters of narrowing the early release scheme argue that public confidence in the justice system depends on sentences meaning what they say, particularly for those who have taken a life or abused children, and that watching PC Harper's killers potentially walk free at the halfway point would have been a profound insult to his family and to policing more broadly. They contend that prison capacity pressures, however real, should be solved through measures like deportation of foreign offenders and releasing those held under abolished IPP sentences rather than by shortening the time served by people convicted of unlawful killing or historic child sexual abuse, whose crimes carry a uniquely severe and lasting impact on victims and communities.
The case against
Critics of carving out further exemptions worry that each concession, however emotionally understandable, hollows out a scheme designed to relieve a genuine and worsening prison capacity crisis, and that policy shaped reactively by public outcry risks incoherence rather than principled sentencing reform. They argue that manslaughter and death by dangerous driving cover a wide range of culpability, some far less severe than murder, and that removing broad categories from early release without individualised assessment may keep lower-risk offenders locked up at great public expense while doing little to address the underlying overcrowding that made the scheme necessary in the first place.