PC Harper’s mother Debbie Adlam has called on Andy Burnham to ensure her son’s killers are not part of the early release scheme.
Speaking on GB News she said: “I’ve not heard directly from [Andy Burnham] but it was his chief of staff that called me, and she gave me the message from him. You know, he passed on his message to me, so that came through yesterday evening, which was welcome.
“It wasn’t Andy Burnham, but it was Downing Street, so that’s a step forward. We kind of now have this limbo of hope again, I suppose, where he’s given his assurance that he’s going to do everything he possibly can to try and make sure that this is prevented from happening.
“We’re in a better place than we were, but I feel like I’ve been here before. You know, it’s a time thing now, by the looks of things, and we’ve got to keep the pressure on because we can’t let this go.
“He assured me that he is feeling more confident than ever that it’s going to be possible. I mean, what that entails, I don’t know. What measures need to be taken to achieve it, that’s not for me to really need to worry about.
“But it will be interesting to see what happens.
“It’s assurance that is coming from Downing Street. So I just hope now that that actually is followed through with action.
“[I would say to Andy Burnham] really just to not let us down again because we’ve had so many ups and downs, and you know, is it going to be that we’ve got to get our heads around this release being early?
“At the end of the day, we’re only waiting till the release date anyway, which isn’t that far off but every day of a sentence should be served. So just please don’t let us down again, because we are pinning our hopes on this happening, and if it doesn’t, I don’t quite know where it leaves us.
“And I don’t know where it leaves the police force realistically, because I think there’s going to be a bit of an uproar if things change. Because I don’t think the police force will have any confidence in the government if it comes to be that they have to be released.”
“[PC Harper] would have probably had a few expletive words. He was very loyal to his colleagues. I think it’s very difficult to discuss, really, how he would feel because I think it’s such a painful issue.
“It’s hard for me to really think about how he would feel because I think on top of losing him in the way that we did, to actually think about his thoughts now-if he’s looking down, you know, his thoughts-that is actually really painful to think about how disappointed and how gutted he would be, because there aren’t really the right words for it. But it’s very painful for me to think and consider what would he be feeling.
“Realistically, [the early release scheme is] a massive issue that will affect the whole of the population in one way or another. You know, we are all reliant on our police forces and emergency service workers to keep us safe and look after us.
“And if they start to leave, which is a possibility, I’ve seen posts saying I couldn’t work under this government. If they let us down like this, we can’t strike. There’s restrictions on what they can do so the option is they leave the force.
“Now, can you imagine if that became a big thing that people were starting to leave. I mean, we’re just going to end up in a very chaotic country where the crime is actually quite horrendous at the moment. You know, we’ve had clearly a lot of issues recently. What would we do without them?
“You see unofficial reports of people that have come across [the perpetrators] within their time in the prison, even. But from the official information that I have, their update that comes every year, they are still both category A prisoners.
“If they have any possibility of being released and still being category A prisoners, then that makes a mockery of that system, because that shows that there was no reason to downgrade them. There’s no good behaviour. There’s no reason to show that they’ve been rehabilitated in any way.
“Even the driver has been given a recategorisation to a category B but these two have shown nothing. And we’ve all seen the pictures and the videos of them sticking their tongue out.
“We saw it all while we were at the court. We were in the Old Bailey seeing this as quite a regular thing and I’ve just got a vision of them coming out and just seeing that all over again, and it’s just vile, quite honestly.
“I would like to thank Andy Burnham really, for at least coming out with what he has and I hope he doesn’t have any more issues with it. I understand it’s a difficult system.
“We’ve got this petition which is 50,000 off 1 million people now and this was only set up on Tuesday so there’s a strength of feeling which is loud and clear.
“Don’t let Andrew down.”
