Henry Long was the driver of the vehicle that dragged the 28-year-old to his death along a rural road in Berkshire last year
The attorney general, Suella Braverman, has told the Court of Appeal that the teenage driver who dragged the Thames Valley Police officer Andrew Harper until he died, should have been given a life sentence.
The 28-year-old police officer was caught up in a rope that Henry Long and his two passengers Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers had used to tow a quad bike that they were intending to steal along a rural road in the county of Berkshire on the 15th of August 2019.
Long, aged 19, was sentenced for 16 years in prison and his passengers, who were 18 years-old were each jailed for 13 years in July, over the tragic death of the young police officer.
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She told three appeal court judges that Long’s 16-year jail term did not reflect “the seriousness of the offence” and was “contrary to the interests of justice”.
Mrs Braverman also argued that the sentencing judge “accorded too great a reduction” to Bowers and Coles’ sentences “for their age and learning”
Mrs Braverman, addressing the court, said of all three:
“These are sentences that have caused and continue to cause widespread public concern.”
“It appears to me that the sentences passed on the offenders were unduly lenient.”
The attorney general said that the original trial judge “having correctly found that the first offender was dangerous and having concluded this was a very serious case of manslaughter and a case very close to murder in its seriousness” should have “imposed a life sentence as opposed to an extended determinate sentence”.
This comes after a Police Constable who scanned a 7p barcode for carrots to pay for a £9.95 box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts at a self-service checkout in the town of Wisbech in Cambridgeshire has lost his job for gross misconduct.
Mrs Braverman continued: “The seriousness of the offence and the ongoing future risk were not and could not, in my submission, be adequately met with an extended determinate sentence.”
“The fact that the offenders caused the death of police officer, acting in the execution of his duty, is of particular aggravating weight.”
“These men and women put their lives at risk every day for the sake of our collective safety and assaults upon them must be treated at the most serious level.”
Long, Cole and Bowers had appeared via a video call from Belmarsh prison in order to be able to attend the hearing.