A campaign calling for the men convicted over the death of PC Andrew Harper to be kept behind bars has now been backed by more than a million people, in what is thought to be one of the fastest-growing petitions of recent years.
The petition, organised by the Thames Valley Police Federation, the body representing PC Harper’s former force, passed the milestone this week, three weeks after it emerged that Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, two of the men jailed over his death, could qualify for early release having served only half of their sentences.
PC Harper, 28, died in 2019 after being dragged along a road in Berkshire for over a mile, caught in the getaway car of thieves who had stolen a quad bike. Bowers and Cole were subsequently convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2020.
News of their potential early release prompted a strongly worded joint letter from police chiefs across Britain, urging the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, to intervene and prevent the pair from walking free ahead of schedule.
Public opinion appears to have hardened significantly against early release schemes more generally. A fresh Ipsos poll found that 69 per cent of people now object to releasing prisoners early as a means of easing overcrowding in jails, a marked rise since Labour first introduced the policy in September 2024. Only 8 per cent of those surveyed said they supported it, and the opposition extended even to Labour’s own voters, 64 per cent of whom were against the scheme.
The same poll suggested that trust in the justice system has eroded sharply, with two in three respondents saying their confidence had fallen. A majority also predicted that early release would fuel further offending, with 63 per cent expecting more anti-social behaviour, 59 per cent anticipating a rise in violent crime, and 58 per cent forecasting higher reoffending rates overall.
In a statement marking the petition’s success, the Police Federation said it had chosen to mark the achievement quietly, out of consideration for PC Harper’s family, given that Friday marks seven years since his death.
Mr Burnham has since instructed Alex Norris, the Justice Secretary, to explore options for keeping Bowers and Cole in custody, with proposals expected once Parliament reconvenes in September. However, officials at the Ministry of Justice have cautioned that carving out an exemption for the two men would be legally difficult without applying the same exemption to everyone convicted of manslaughter, a group thought to number around 470 prisoners, raising fresh concerns about capacity in an already stretched prison system.
The wider early release scheme, due to begin in October, is expected to apply to roughly 5,000 offenders, including some convicted of violent and sexual offences, allowing them to leave prison after serving a third or half of their sentence, provided their behaviour in custody has been satisfactory. The Government has already confirmed that around 1,000 rapists and child groomers will be excluded from the scheme, following a separate campaign led by abuse survivor Jade Belgrove, whose own petition attracted more than 100,000 signatures.
Beyond the petition itself, the Ipsos survey pointed to broader dissatisfaction with the justice system: 79 per cent of respondents felt prison sentences were generally too short, 74 per cent viewed overcrowding as a serious issue, and 80 per cent said delays in bringing cases to trial were a significant problem.
A SECOND TRAIN HAS DERAILED! INDEPENDENT NEWS LIVE