‘Harper’s law’ is a mistake

What is a suitable punishment for those who kill a policeman? For PC Andrew Harper’s widow, Lissie, the sentences given to her husband’s teenage killers – a maximum of 16 years – were woefully insufficient. Many agreed. And now Lissie Harper has started a petition calling for ‘Harper’s law’. Half a million people have signed up, demanding a change in the law to ensure those convicted of killing a police officer, firefighter, nurse, doctor, prison officer or paramedic are jailed for life. But while it is impossible not to feel horror at the way in which PC Harper was killed – entangled in a tow rope and dragged along a road for over a mile behind a car – as well as sympathy with his widow, ‘Harper’s Law’ is a bad idea.

The campaign is not directed at those who murder emergency workers. Murder already attracts an automatic life sentence, and where the victim is a police officer doing his duty the statutory ‘starting point’ is life without parole.