Why Two of PC Andrew Harper's Killers Could Still Be Released Early — and Why It's So Hard to Stop

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has told Justice Secretary Alex Norris to come back to parliament in September with further changes to a prisoner early release scheme, after it emerged that two of the three killers of PC Andrew Harper are still eligible for early release under changes due next month. The directive, first reported in the Times, is the latest twist in a policy story that has followed Burnham since he became prime minister three weeks ago. Housing Secretary Angela Rayner confirmed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Burnham had asked Norris to find a way to keep Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers behind bars. The Guardian

The revised early release scheme, set to take effect from September 2026, would exclude around 1,000 fewer prisoners than initially proposed. Cole and Bowers, convicted alongside Henry Long for the killing of PC Harper in 2019, still qualified under the scheme's rules despite the changes. Long, who drove the car that dragged PC Harper to his death, was not affected because his longer sentence put him outside the scheme's scope.

Burnham had paused the early release programme on August 5, announcing an "urgent review" to reduce public risk after the Harper case came to light. Norris apologised to PC Harper's family on behalf of the government over the early release plans the same day. Some prisoner releases went ahead anyway, according to Channel 4 News.

The problem facing the government is that UK prisons are nearly full. There is a fixed number of places, and the system is so close to its limit that keeping some people locked up longer means running out of space for others. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Burnham said he could "look people in the eye" and say "there was nothing more I could have asked for without risking the prison system reaching capacity and collapsing within months." A Downing Street spokesperson said No 10 could not simply change the rules to exclude people convicted of killing an emergency worker, because doing so would cause the Prison Service to run out of room.

Rayner indicated the government is looking at other ways to free up space without destabilising the prison system. Options include releasing more prisoners on IPP sentences (a type of indefinite sentence that was abolished for new cases in 2012), releasing more women, and sending foreign offenders back to their home countries faster. The idea is simple: if specific people like Harper's killers are kept inside, the same number of spaces must be freed up somewhere else.

The political pressure on Burnham has been growing from several directions. Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Barber jointly wrote to the prime minister urging him to keep Harper's killers behind bars, as reported on August 10. The case matters a lot for policing: the Telegraph reported concerns that releasing people convicted of killing a police officer would make it harder to recruit and keep officers.

The broader context here is that a new prime minister, in office only since late July, is facing an early test of his justice policy against the reality of a prison system that is almost full. The IPP sentence option is controversial on its own; these indefinite sentences have long been a source of campaigning anger, and letting IPP prisoners out early would draw criticism too. Speeding up deportations of foreign offenders, meanwhile, runs into legal and diplomatic obstacles that no government has fully solved.

What is still unresolved is whether Norris can design a change narrow enough to keep Cole and Bowers inside without triggering a chain reaction of exemptions that Downing Street has warned about. The September return to parliament now serves as the deadline. Until then, the two remain eligible under the current rules.

Alex Norris became Justice Secretary after serving as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Local Growth & Building Safety at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government from July 2024. He now has to find a way to keep Harper's killers locked up while working within a prison system the prime minister says is months from collapse.

The case of PC Andrew Harper, killed in the line of duty in August 2019, has become the central pressure point on Burnham's early justice agenda. Three weeks into his premiership, the prime minister is caught between a public and policing community demanding accountability for a police officer's death and a prison system with almost no room left to manoeuvre.