The mother of PC Andrew Harper has delivered a scathing nine-word response to the news that his killers will be eligible for early release under Labour's plans.
PC Harper died after being caught in a strap attached to the back of a car and dragged along a country road as three teenagers fled the scene of a burglary.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham announced on Monday that those serving sentences for rape, serious child sexual offences, and grooming would be excluded from an early release scheme designed to tackle prison overcrowding.
Eligible for early release
However, two of PC Harper's killers, who were sentenced to 13 years for manslaughter in 2020, will be among the 5,000 people still eligible under the Government's planned sentencing changes.
The officer's mother, Debbie Adlam, told BBC Breakfast: "Andrew deserves better than this and so do we."
Ms Adlam added: "We are bitterly disappointed. I don't feel like we should be in this position. It's not somewhere we would expect to be. We really feel we should have more support than this."
Family's anger
PC Harper sustained fatal injuries while responding to a quad bike theft in Sulhamstead, Berkshire, in August 2019. The driver of the vehicle, Henry Long, received a 16-year sentence and would not have been eligible for the scheme.
Ms Adlam told BBC Newsnight that Justice Secretary Alex Norris had called her to explain the situation: "if nothing was done, then the prison system would fall completely."
"But we're paying the price for it," she said. "It's Andrew and his family, and many others like us, we're paying the price."
PC Harper's widow, Lissie Harper, has also condemned the release plans, warning that letting killers walk free early would be "an affront to justice" and "an utter betrayal".
"The level of disrespect the Government are showing to Andrew and other victims - and to their loved ones such as me - is beyond contempt," she said.
Mr Norris said he understood the family's "anger" but added that if the release scheme didn't go ahead, "we would run out of prison places in this October or November".
He told Sky News: "I know that's difficult. I know that's created harm, and it's not Lissie Harper's fault, and I'm sorry that she's been put into this position as a result, I genuinely am. But this is a decision we've had to make to make sure we have a functioning prison system."
