THE PRIME Minister has said that the killers of PC Andrew Harper may be excluded from planned early release for prisoners set to begin later this year.
While Andy Burnham indicated last week that Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers would likely be among those released early, the PM has now said he is “confident” he can bar the pair from being included in the upcoming program.
It comes after a public backlash to legislation which lays out a program of early releases for jailed convicts in a bid to lessen pressure on a strained prison system in the UK.
While serious offenders convicted of crimes such as rape, serious child sexual offences, and grooming would be excluded, around 5,000 prisoners would be eligible for early release under current plans.
It was made public last month that PC Andrew Harper’s mother had been informed by the Ministry of Justice that two of those convicted of his killing could be eligible for early release.
Since, hundreds of thousands of people have called for Cole and Bowers to be made ineligible for early release, in a petition led by Aileen O’Connor, Chair of the Thames Valley Police Federation.
Among them are the Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner, Matthew Barber; TVP’s Chief Constable, Jason Hogg; Reading West and Mid Berkshire MP Olivia Bailey; and Wokingham MP Clive Jones.
They were also joined by 50 other leaders in police forces around the country in calling for the PM to find some way of their release being prevented.
Now Burnham has said that he is “confident” that both Cole and Bowers can be excluded from the scheme.
He also explained that he would hold talks with opposition parties in how he approaches a solution.
It also comes after last week saw the PM order an urgent review into identifying if any of those planned for early release were connected to grooming gangs, but no confirmation of whether any action would be taken in those cases has yet been given.
Cole and Bowers were both passengers in the car behind which PC Andrew Harper was dragged–leading to his death– in 2019, and were sentenced to 13 years in prison each.
The case led to the creation of Harper’s Law, which encated a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment for anyone convicted of killing emergency workers, following campaigning by PC Harper’s widow, Lissie Harper.
The current plans to start a series of rolling early releases of convicts are set to begin in October
