March 2020. A police officer was killed in “truly shocking circumstances” when he was dragged for more than a mile along a road by three people trying to steal a quad bike, a court has heard. Andrew Harper, 28, a police constable with Thames Valley Police, died on 15 August last year of “catastrophic, unsurvivable injuries” after his feet became lassoed in a rope attached to a car, which the defendants had been using to steal the bike. Three teenagers – two 17-year-olds who cannot be named and 18-year-old Henry Long – deny Harper’s murder. Long, from Mortimer, Reading, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter. They have all admitted conspiracy to steal a quad bike. Opening the case for the prosecution at the Old Bailey on Tuesday, Brian Altman QC said: “With his ankles caught in a strap that was trailing behind a car being driven at speed along a country lane, he was dragged for over a mile along the road surface, swung from side to side like a pendulum in an effort to dislodge him, losing items of his police uniform along the way, with the rest of his uniform being quite literally ripped and stripped from his body.
Mar 2020. The Andrew Harper Killing
