Detective tells ITV's Sir Trevor McDonald that PC Harper's killers 'only thought about themselves'

Henry Long, 19, Albert Bowers, 18, and Jesse Cole, 18, were caught smirking at the cameras as they arrived at the Old Bailey during their trial.

Det Ch Insp Stuart Blaik, the senior investigating officer, this week told veteran broadcaster Sir Trevor McDonald in a documentary about the 2019 killing: “I don’t think at any point during the police interviews that they showed any sense of regret.

“I really don’t think they understood the devastation that they caused Lissie [PC Harper’s widow]. The only people they think about are themselves.”

READ MORE: Andrew Harper's widow speaks to ITV's Sir Trevor McDonald

Interviewed for ITV’s one-part special The Killing of PC Harper: A Widow’s Fight for Justice, Mr Blaik said that driver Long’s prepared statement – given to detectives as he was quizzed about PC Harper’s death – was ‘littered with lies’.

Long and his two co-accused had been arrested not long after PC Harper died when he became entangled in a tow rope and was dragged behind the gang’s Seat Toledo getaway car near Stanford Dingley, Berkshire, on the night of August 15, 2019.

The police officer had got out his unmarked police car to apprehend the youths, who were trying to tow a stolen quad bike worth £10,000.

Upon his arrest at the Four Houses Corner caravan site, Long asked the officers: “Do I look like a murderer?"

Jessie Cole, Albert Bowers and Henry Long Picture: PA/TVP

Later, when he was being charged with murder and conspiracy to steal and cautioned by the police officers, Long replied: “I don’t give a f*** about any of this.”

Sir Trevor’s hour-long ITV documentary set out painstaking work that went in to try and secure a conviction for murder.

That detective work included piecing together mobile phone data and trawling through hundreds of hours of CCTV footage to establish that Long and his co-defendants had been using the Seat in the days leading up to PC Harper’s death.

READ MORE: Detective says he 'doesn't believe' PC Harper's killers are sorry

Notwithstanding that work, jurors at the Old Bailey were not sure of the trio’s guilt. The men were acquitted of murder but convicted of manslaughter.

That second heartbreak prompted widow Lissie Harper to campaign for mandatory life sentences for those who kill a police officer in the line of duty. The government confirmed late last year that ‘Harper’s Law’ would be introduced.

Mrs Harper described the loss of her husband as a ‘blur of heart wrenching pain’. The couple, who lived in Wallingford, had got married just four weeks earlier.

She said of the officer’s funeral at Christ Church Cathedral, which saw police and members of the public flank St Aldates and the High Street: “It was one of the hardest days of my life saying goodbye to my husband.”

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