DRIVING down the dark Berkshire lane where a brave police officer was dragged to his death by a speeding car, Sir Trevor McDonald’s blood ran cold.
The veteran newscaster was making a heart-wrenching documentary about PC Andrew Harper’s young widow Lissie’s campaign for a change in the law to save other families from the nightmare she has endured.
Viewers will see Sir Trevor appear visibly shocked as he visits the spot where PC Harper leapt out of a police car to tackle three thieves who were towing a stolen quadbike behind a car.
As they sped off, the 28-year-old officer’s legs became tangled in the tow rope attached to the back of the Seat car, and Andrew was dragged along the road.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, Sir Trevor says: “I can’t tell you how shocked I was.
“The overwhelming feeling is of profound sadness and tragedy about the manner in which he died.
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“I couldn’t get over the fact that he had finished his shift. He had done his day’s work and was on his way home, only to be dragged along that dark road when he answered a 999 call.
“His colleagues saw his stab vest before they spotted his mangled body. It is just too tragic for words.”
Since her husband’s brutal killing, Lissie has fought to make sure anyone who kills an emergency worker is jailed for life.
Remarkably, less than three years later, Harper’s Law will soon be on Britain’s statute books.
When Sir Trevor first heard of Lissie Harper’s campaign, he wasn’t convinced it would get anywhere.
But then he met the 30-year-old widow at her Oxfordshire home and changed his mind.
Sir Trevor says: “She opened the door. I looked at her and thought, you are much too young and much too vulnerable a person to be classed as a widow.
“And then she spoke with such eloquence. She described what happened, her reaction and what she wanted to do. I couldn’t believe how brilliant and how determined she was.”
In the documentary Lissie tells the veteran newscaster: “You can’t ever fix the sadness but you can learn to cope with it better.
“I want to create some kind of legacy, something that I know Andrew would be proud of.
“Otherwise, it’s a just a disgraceful waste of an amazing person’s life.”
In The Killing of PC Harper: A Widow’s Fight for Justice, Lissie reveals how she learned that her husband of just four weeks was dead.
She says: “It was very late at night and I had a loud knock on the door thinking it was Andrew coming home and he had forgotten his key or something.
“But having looked down out of the window to see a police officer in uniform – that’s when I thought, well this isn’t right.
I want to create some kind of legacy, something that I know Andrew would be proud of. Otherwise, it’s a just a disgraceful waste of an amazing person’s life
Lissie Harper
“He sat me down and very calmly said to me that Andrew had died.
“I just remember feeling like those words were the most alien thing to me.
“I think I said to him, ‘But we’ve just got married, that can’t be true’.
“A few minutes later he said to me, ‘We’ve got people in custody’.
“I said ‘What do you mean? Was it not an accident then?’ He said, ‘No, we don’t think it was.’
“It was kind of a secondary sort of shock. Somebody has taken his life.
“It’s just a blur of heart-wrenching pain. We’d just gone from the happiest day of our lives to the worst in such a short space of time.
We’d just gone from the happiest day of our lives to the worst in such a short space of time
Lissie Harper
“It was like my life then stopped. Nobody at age 28 thinks they’re going to be a widow.”
Her mum, Julie Beckett, says: “Lissie was just distraught, she was being ill, she was just a mess really. A little girl whose world had just fallen apart.
“As parents watching your child and not being able to take the pain away is unbearable, absolutely unbearable.”
Lissie also reveals that 6ft 5in Andrew didn’t talk about his work as an officer with Thames Valley Police.
She says: “I think he probably didn’t want to worry me. He had a very strong moral compass.
“He wanted to be this force of strength and act as a barrier between the people who do wrong in the world and the people who need protecting from it.
“I always just, maybe naively, assumed that he would be okay.”
When we were at the crematorium Lissie just grabbed the coffin and couldn’t let go. That was just heart-breaking
Acting Inspector Andy Fiddler, PC Harper's friend
Lissie granted Andrew a police funeral, knowing it was what he would have wanted.
“It was one of the hardest days of my life saying goodbye to my husband,” she recalls.
“There were a lot of people there, there were a lot of tears and kind words and expressions of condolence but at the end of the day I was, in a lot of ways, alone.”
Andrew’s friend, Acting Inspector Andy Fiddler, remembers: “When we were at the crematorium Lissie just grabbed the coffin and couldn’t let go. That was just heart-breaking.”
Lissie faced more heartbreak when she came face-to-face in court with her husband’s killers, ringleader Henry Long, 18, Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, both 17.
They all denied murder and claimed they did not know Andrew was being dragged behind their getaway car.
She reveals: “The first time I saw them, they were sitting there without a care in the world. Messing around.
“They had absolutely no regard for others, any kind of remorse or guilt or sympathy, or true human emotion that you expect from decent people in the world, just wasn’t there.”
I remember a lot of cheering from the suspects’ families, which was quite a kick in the gut. There was no compassion, they could have been at a football match
Lissie Harper
Lissie’s appalled mum Julie adds: “They say that you shouldn’t look at them but you do look at them. You can’t help but look at them because of the hatred that you’ve got.
“They absolutely knew what was happening. They had a choice. They could have stopped and it would have been so different… I hope they rot in hell.”
The jury cleared Henry Long, Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers of murder. Instead, they were jailed for between 13 and 19 years for manslaughter.
Lissie says: “I remember hearing one of the jurors read out the verdict and thinking, this is wrong.
“I remember a lot of cheering from the suspects’ families, which was quite a kick in the gut.
“There was no compassion, they could have been at a football match.
“I don’t think they thought for one second about Andrew at all and that was incredibly hard to bear.
“I remember thinking if you take somebody’s life then you need to pay the consequences.”
So, with the help of Andrew’s pal Insp Fiddler and the Police Federation, Lissie began campaigning for Harper’s Law.
It would give life sentences to anyone who commits the manslaughter of an emergency worker on duty – including police, prison officers, firefighters and paramedics – while carrying out another crime.
Under Harper’s Law, Long, Bowers and Cole would have been charged with killing Andrew, with no distinction made between murder and manslaughter.
They would have received automatic life sentences, regardless of their age.
Lissie says: “I could have just hidden away and carried on and tried to find a different sort of future but that’s not me and that wouldn’t be fair to Andrew.
The creation of Harper’s Law was never to bring me comfort or closure. This campaign was always for those who find themselves in a similar position in the future
Lissie Harper
“This law will sadly never change the outcome of my husband’s death, nor will it change the outcome of the trial and the sentences imposed on his killers.
“But the creation of Harper’s Law was never to bring me comfort or closure. This campaign was always for those who find themselves in a similar position in the future.
“To offer justice to the protectors who will heartbreakingly lose their lives in the line of duty, and for their families who await the decisions in a court room just like I did.
“I do feel that the success of getting this new law through will hopefully allow me to begin to move forward.”
Mum Julie says: “Lissie’s life changed completely. But she’s able to channel her grief and her anger into something that she can focus on.
“Once she gets Harper’s Law passed I think that could give her some kind of closure.
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“And then she can hopefully move on and start living her life.”
The Killing of PC Harper: A Widow’s Fight for Justice is on ITV at 9pm tonight (March 15).
