Release of PC Andrew Harper's smirking killers would be a monstrous injustice: Andrew Vine

THEY say a picture is worth a thousand words, and in the case of an image currently in the news, the story it tells is one of an impending injustice that every decent person in Britain will find abhorrent.

The picture is of the killers of PC Andrew Harper, Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, being taken from a prison van into court for their sentencing six years ago.

They are laughing and apparently jeering at the camera, revelling in their notoriety as if the death of a brave police officer who gave his life in the line of duty is a huge joke.

There is not a trace of remorse in the expressions of these amoral thugs whose car dragged PC Harper along a country road in Berkshire when he tried to stop them fleeing the scene of a quad bike theft in 2019.

It is a sickening picture, and the laughter of the killers frozen in it must be like a dagger to the hearts of PC Harper’s widow, Lissie, and his parents.

Cole and Bowers could have plenty more to laugh about in a few months’ time, when they are due for release halfway through their 13-year sentences for manslaughter as part of the government’s efforts to free space in Britain’s full-to bursting prisons.

To most people, these two shouldn’t be let out a day early, let alone after only six-and-a-half years.

It feels like a monstrous injustice, an insult to PC Harper’s memory and to his family, whose dignity in interviews about the issue does not mask how raw their grief remains. They have asked how it is even possible that Cole and Bowers could be released so soon, and it is a question the rest of us echo.

The Prime Minister should provide an answer to it, and the unequivocal one that Cole and Bowers will not be let out early.

The continuing imprisonment of these two would make no material difference to jails being overcrowded, and letting them out would send the disturbing message that the killers of a police officer are somehow less dangerous than sexual offenders who have been exempted from the early release programme.

The government has got itself into a terrible tangle over this. Last week, justice minister Jake Richards argued that individual offenders could not be singled out for exemption.

Sorry, Mr Richards, but that’s not good enough. The government should have the guts to declare that two men who laughed as they were led into court to answer for a dreadful crime are not getting out early, and if they mount a legal challenge to that decision, the public would undoubtedly back ministers in fighting it.

Mr Burnham and his colleagues must recognise that this is a special case. Thanks to the campaigning of his widow, PC Harper’s killing prompted a change in the law.

Harper’s Law, as it became known, ensures that anyone convicted of killing an emergency worker in the course of a crime faces a mandatory life sentence.

Though it cannot be applied retrospectively to Cole and Bowers, the government should respect its spirit in denying them freedom.

Failing that, there is another way to keep them in jail. As a group of prisoners, sexual offenders have been ruled too dangerous to be let out. A similar classification could be made of those convicted of killing police officers, which would ensure Cole and Bowers remain behind bars.

Though this case has become the most emblematic of the government’s difficulties over early releases, there are others which are hardly less disturbing.

Last week’s review of the release of sexual offenders convicted of abusing children was an illustration of how dangerous men who should undoubtedly be in custody could slip through the net as the government scrambles to free space in jails.

It is possible to have some sympathy for Mr Burnham as he tries to sort out this mess, which has been festering for years. Like Sir Keir Starmer before him, he has inherited the consequences of a decade of under-investment by the Conservatives in prisons.

But there are steps he could take to ease pressure on the jails without releasing smirking police killers or sexual predators.

According to the Ministry of Justice, 12 per cent of jail places are occupied by foreign nationals, amounting to 10,700 prisoners. Surely it should not be beyond the power of the government to deport many of these people to their home countries to serve out their sentences.

And there are lessons to be learned from elsewhere in Europe. Sweden has just signed a deal with Estonia to house 600 prisoners to ease overcrowding. There is every reason for us to do likewise until we are able to build enough new prisons to ensure that justice is served for victims such as PC Harper and those who mourn them.