A police officer’s widow heard in court today how he was dragged by his ankles behind a car for a mile at more than 42mph, shredding nearly all of his uniform off him as he tried to stop a gang stealing a £10,000 quad bike.
PC Andrew Harper became entangled in a loading strap that three teenagers were allegedly using to tow the stolen bike at a country house in Sulhamstead, Berkshire.
As the gang – armed with an axe, hammer and a pipe – drove off in their Seat Toledo on August 15 last year, PC Harper was lassoed around the legs and dragged along the lane – leaving him with ‘unsurvivable’ injuries, jurors at the Old Bailey heard.
Brian Altman QC, prosecuting, 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.’
The newlywed officer’s widow Lissie Harper sat in the well of the court as the jury was told how the driver tried to dislodge her 28-year-old husband and he was ‘swung from side to side like a pendulum’ as his uniform was ‘ripped from his body’.
Lissie Harper, the wife of Andrew Harper, is pictured being driven into the Old Bailey today
Mr Altman said: ‘When, at last, he became disentangled, he was left with the most awful injuries, from which he died there on the road, surrounded by colleagues who tried in vain to save him.
‘His injuries were simply not survivable, and he could not be saved.’ Mr Altman added that he died naked ‘apart from his socks and boots’ and shredded parts of the trousers he was wearing.
He continued: ‘This was a completely senseless killing of a young police officer in the line of duty.’
Driver Henry Long, 18, has admitted manslaughter but denies murder. Two 17-year-old boys who cannot be named have both admitted taking the vehicle, but each deny murder.
Thomas King, 21, of Bramley, Hampshire, earlier admitted conspiring to steal the same quad bike belonging to Peter Wallace and will be sentenced on a later date.
Long, of Mortimer, near Reading, admits manslaughter and conspiracy to steal but denies murder. The 17-year-olds admit conspiracy to steal but deny murder.
Known to his colleagues as ‘Harps’, PC Harper was due to finish his shift at 7pm with colleague PC Andrew Shaw. But on the way back to base they decided to do one final job.
Mr Altman said: ‘At 11.17 that Thursday night, a Thames Valley Police emergency operator received a report of the theft of a quad bike at a residential address known as Privett House which lies in a quiet country lane off Cock Lane, in Bradfield Southend, in Berkshire.
PC Andrew Harper, 28, was dragged to his death by a car in Berkshire, prosecutors say
‘The report, which was made by the homeowner, Peter Wallis, indicated that three or four masked and gloved men had alighted from a car and had managed to make off from his property with his new, 2019 registered, and clearly valuable, Honda TRX500 quad bike. The three men in the dock are those men.’
The two officers responded when they were heading back to their base in Abingdon on the M4 from the Reading area, the Old Bailey heard.
‘Despite it being well beyond the end of their shift, because they were close and thought they could help, they responded to the call. It was a decision that was to cost Andrew Harper his life,’ Mr Altman said.
They came off the M4 and drove up Lambdens Hill confronting the Seat as it drove towards them.
Long was driving, another teenager sat beside him and the second 17-year-old was sitting on the quad bike as it was towed behind the car with the loading strap, the Old Bailey heard.
‘Not only did they wear gloves and disguise themselves with masks, but also they had disconnected all the rear light clusters to the car – brake, side and indicator lights – so that in any pursuit along dark country lanes they could disappear into the night, without trace, as had been their plan,’ Mr Altman said.
‘They had been to the same premises earlier that day, at a little before 5pm, in the daylight, in order to steal the same quad bike.
PC Harper and his wife Lissie celebrate their wedding at Ardington House on July 18, 2019
‘For additional security on that earlier occasion, they had also taped over the number plates to disguise the identity of the car from the front and behind.’
When the thieves were confronted by the unmarked police car, the teenager got off the quad bike, unhitched the handle bars from the loading strap and tried to get into the Seat.
Long then tried to drive around the police car as the teenager struggled to get in.
PC Harper ran after him and his colleague turned on the blue and white flashing lights of the car.
Mr Altman said: ‘In his rush to ensure that he and his friends did not get caught the quad bike driver, who had unhitched the crane strap from the quad bike, had been unable to replace the crane strap in the car boot.
‘PC Harper, who was but a few feet away, had simply not seen or realised that in that moment he had stepped, with both feet, it appears, into the loop made on the road surface by the trailing crane strap.
‘As Long floored the Seat car to make good their escapes, PC Harper was lassoed around his ankles by the loop of the strap.
Driver Henry Long, 18, has admitted manslaughter but denies murder
‘It is the prosecution case that Long drove that car knowing full well that PC Harper was entangled in the strap, and he drove it in a manner calculated to dislodge him, and to make good their escape, as had been their plan all along.
‘The average speed at which Long drove the car along that dark and narrow county lane was a little over 42.5mph.’
Jurors heard the direction car could be traced by a trail of ‘tyre marks, abrasion and scuff marks (and blood) left behind on the road surface, as well as personal items and clothing that were ripped from PC Harper as he was dragged to his death’.
When another driver saw the officer being dragged at the exit of the lane he thought he was looking at a ‘bloodied deer.’
‘He quickly realised it was a person trapped by both ankles being dragged around the road and striking the kerb,’ Mr Altman said.
PC Shaw realised something was wrong when his colleague was still missing when he did not reappear from the rear of the police car and set off to find out what had happened.
Mr Altman continued: ‘Eventually, he managed to turn around in a small lane where Admoor Lane meets Lambden Hill, and, now facing in the right direction, PC Shaw drove back Lambdens Hill but had to stop when he (came) across what turned out to be PC Harper’s stab vest in the road which had been torn from him. Having picked it up and placed it in his car, PC Shaw drove on.’
A court artist’s sketch of Henry Long (left) sitting beside an officer at the Old Bailey yesterday
The prosecutor added: Somehow, not very far after turning into Ufton Lane, PC Harper’s ankles became detached from the strap.’
He said that when other police units arrived on the scene, including PC Shaw who finally caught up, he was naked apart from his socks, boots and some ripped shreds of the seat and the lower right trouser leg of his police uniform.
The prosecutor continued; ‘He was barely alive when he was found. He died soon after where he lay in Ufton Lane in the company of fellow officers who had tried desperately to save him.
‘Needless to say, PC Harper had suffered absolutely catastrophic, unsurvivable injuries.’
The prosecutor told the jury: ‘You will be relieved to hear that there will be no need to see any photographic imagery of his injuries as found in the roadway or in the course of the post-mortem examination of his body.
‘But you will have to hear about them, and you will see visualisations of the dreadful injuries he suffered.’
Deborah and Phil Adlam, the mother and stepfather of PC Andrew Harper, pictured outside the Old Bailey at the time of a previous hearing on January 7
Mr Altman said Long must have known the officer was being dragged behind him because he made repeated efforts to try and free him from the strap.
‘A meandering, snaking blood trail along the country lane and into and across the junction of the A4, tells its own story about the nature of the driving and makes clear graphically that PC Harper, who was still attached to the car as they crossed the A4, was being deliberately swung like a pendulum in an effort to dislodge him.
‘It provides evidence of how he was (dragged) along that narrow country lane, abraded by the metalled road surface, striking the hedgerows and other objects, as the force of the dragging twisted and turned him by his ankles on the strap.’
Long and the two teenagers were arrested later that night at a travellers’ caravan site, the court heard.
‘These three defendants were arrested later that night at a travellers’ caravan site from where they had launched their criminal expedition that night and to which they had returned after it,’ Mr Altman said.
‘The site is known as Four Houses Corner and is located between Ufton Nervet and Mortimer in Berkshire.
Police officers at the scene in Sulhamstead, Berkshire, in August 2019 after PC Harper’s death
Mr Altman said: ‘If Long and (the other defendants) had no idea that Andrew was entangled in the strap why was there a need to drive so recklessly?
‘The answer is easy to see. All three knew it was a police car that had confronted them.’
Mr Altman said it was ‘ludicrous’ to suggest they did not know the police officer was trapped in the strap behind the car.
‘It is not difficult to imagine the screaming and shouting that must have taken place inside that car about what was unfolding,’ he told the jury.
Long admits manslaughter on the basis that he accepts that he was unlawfully making off from police in a manner that carried an obvious risk of injury, but he denies knowing he was dragging PC Harper behind the car.
Mr Altman added: ‘As I have said, all three were associated with the Four Houses Corner travellers’ caravan site in Ufton Nervet, from which they launched this criminal expedition.
‘The site is where they went following it is and it where they were arrested.’
Hours before they dragged the officer along a country lane, Henry Long and the two 17-year-olds had carried out reconnaissance at the house they stole the quad bike from, it was claimed.
Witnesses saw three or four males, one matching the description of Thomas King, in the same Seat Toledo at 4.50pm not far from Privett House.
Rebecca Brooke and Yvonne Millam noticed the car and spotted the front and rear number plates had been covered in blue tape, Mr Altman said.
‘The car looked full and the occupants were wearing balaclavas. For understandable reasons, she found this scary and intimidating,’ he added.
‘Peter Wallis is and was the owner of Privett House. At the time of these events, he was refurbishing the house, so it looked like a building site.
‘There was a large green tent at the front. The house is surrounded by one and half acres of land. There is a driveway up to the house and a garage to the left, as well as a shed to the rear of the house.
‘There are no neighbours in close proximity. Parked on his driveway there was a white Ford Range pick-up truck and a black Subaru Forrester.
‘In front of the Subaru there a skip. And in the corner, parked alongside the garage, was Mr Wallis’ 2019 registered quad bike.
‘He had it since April 2019, and it cost him £10,000. Mr Wallis had attached a trailer to it and had hooked a wooden pallet to it, which contained tools and the like.’
A file photograph of PC Harper’s mother Deborah Adlam outside the Old Bailey on January 7
Thomas Gunter was sitting outside The Bull Inn, on Cock Lane, when he saw the car speeding along the road back and forth three times, jurors heard.
He said it appeared to be full and blasting loud music out. Privett House is about half a mile south from the pub.
‘You can conclude the car had first driven past Privett House to the south to scout it out,’ added Mr Altman.
Seven rolls of tape were found in the footwell of the car when it was searched and CCTV shows the number plates covered in the material.
The Old Bailey was also told PC Harper’s killers were armed with an axe, hammer and a pipe.
Mr Wallis was asleep at 11.25pm when he was awoken by headlights shining through his ground floor window.
He put on exterior lighting and saw men in gloves and masks approaching his quad bike.
Jurors heard the thieves were ‘spooked’ by Mr Wallis moving around in his heavy boots.
But the teenagers lifted the 330kg (727lbs) vehicle and snapped off a piece of its number plate.
After attaching the bike to the crane strap at the rear of the Seat, Long and the 17-year-olds began to make their exit.
Mr Wallis told police: ‘I have got four masked men outside my house and they have got weapons, handheld things, handheld pieces of wood or something.’
When the Seat was later searched police found a ‘large axe with a wooden handle, a pair of choppers, a hammer and a pipe,’ said Mr Altman.
‘The prosecution say that his (Mr Wallis’s) first impression was in fact the right one. The defendants took items with them to be used as weapons and carried them openly. This is significant.
‘Why did they need items that could be used as weapons. The answer is a simple one. To use them, if necessary. To use them if anyone stood in their way or tried to disrupt them or tried to prevent their escape, so determined were they not to leave this time without that quad bike.
‘Mr Wallis had challenged the men during the first attempt on his property that day. One of them men had been aggressive in his response but had learned that the occupier was someone not easily intimidated and would challenge them.
‘They knew now, having seen him, that the premises were not just a building site, but they were in fact occupied.
‘Yet despite this, and having been thwarted once, they returned, this time at night. It was because they had learned that the occupier was someone not easily intimidated and would challenge them, that they took and openly carried items that could be used as weapons.
‘This time, they quickly discovered that the occupier was still on the premises, because the first thing Mr Wallis did was to switch on the front exterior lights to the house, signalling he was there.
‘Mr Wallis also thought he was making such a noise by moving about his house that the men were at first spooked by it, yet, they decided to continue undeterred, having, you may think, the confidence that being tooled-up provided them.
‘And, we suggest, they were ready, as part of their planning if necessary, to use the items they had brought with them as weapons, if anyone stood in their way.
‘Sensibly, Mr Wallis did not stand in their way this time. PC Harper did try to stand in their way, and he paid the ultimate price for it.’
The trial continues.