Andy Burnham yet to reply 12 days after Chief Constable wrote letter warning about PC Harper killers' release
Andy Burnham has been threatened with legal action over refusal to block PC Harper's killers from early release scheme
The Chief Constable has said he wrote to the Prime Minister twelve days ago warning about the early release of PC Andrew Harper's killers but has yet to receive a reply.
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Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police Jason Hogg told Nick Ferrari at Breakfast that he wrote to Andy Burnham and the Justice Secretary "eleven or twelve days ago" but has still not heard anything back.
It comes after justice minister Jake Richards intimated that two of the police officer's killers - Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers - would be eligible for early release from jail under legislation due to take effect in October.
Speaking on Nick Ferrari at Breakfast, Richards said that the government had "spoken to the Harper family and will continue to engage with victims such as the Harper family and indeed others as well" but said ministers would not "handpick cases".
Richards stressed that the government had a "responsibility to ensure we have a functioning law and order system. And without prison places, you don't have one."
It comes as fury mounts over the Prime Minister's refusal to block the early release of PC Harper's killers from prison.
Andy Burnham has been threatened with legal action by the Police Federation – the group representing officers in the force where Pc Harper served.
Pushed by Ferrari on whether the Government could retrospectively alter the law to prevent the killers from leaving jail, the minister Jake Richards said this had not been looked at and that the government would not "handpick cases".
He said: "Retrospective changes to criminal sentencing is not something as a functioning juristiction that we that we have ever properly considered.
"We’ll always look at the options that are available, but what we cannot do, however difficult, however unimaginable the pain that the families and the victims are going through, is handpick cases for different criminal justice consequences.
Thames Valley Police chair Aileen O’Connor said Burnham's decision to allow killers out early was “an insult to Andrew’s family, friends and colleagues” and said, “Andy Burnham may be on his holidays but we won’t rest on this.”
PC Harper's family, including his campaigner widow Lissie, are said to be supportive of the move.
Mr Burnham had reportedly hoped to block early release for manslaughter convictions, but is said to have decided that prisons are too full to do so.
This means that Cole and Bowers, who were passengers in the car which killed PC Harper, will still be eligible for early release from October.
Richards said: "I don't know what legal action they are intending to make, and of course they have every right to consider their options."
He added the government understood "the strength of feeling in the police community more generally, and in particular in that force".
This comes despite Lissie Harper's campaign being a major factor in a review which saw rapists and child sex offenders stopped from being released early.
Jason Hogg said that the "irony" of the campaign launched by Harper's widow Lissie was that while "rapists and child abusers are now going to be staying in prison longer which is undoubtedly a good thing...(Harper's family) don't feel they haven’t been listened to".
Richards was also asked by Nick about the potential early release of female prisoners. He said: "There is a recognition that perhaps there are some women who end up in prison who perhaps shouldn't be there, and we need to look at that carefully because there are other women who commit very serious offences who should be behind bars."
He also told Nick Ferrari that the government was “considering and looking at all the options available” for a public inquiry into Jeffrey Epstein and will come to a decision “over the coming weeks."
The Prime Minister has reportedly agreed to meet with Epstein's victims.
The government is also said to be investigating whether former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed could be part of the inquiry.
Writing in The Sun, head of the Police Federation Aileen O'Connor challenged the PM and Justice Secretary Alex Norris to stand before Lissie and his family to “explain why those responsible for killing a police officer should be eligible for early release”.
Ms O’Connor added online: “This decision pours salt into wounds that have never healed.
“It is an insult to Andrew’s family, his friends, his colleagues and the entire policing family.”
She added: “I don’t feel like we should be in this position. It’s not somewhere we would expect to be.
“We really feel we should have more support than this and, you know, Andrew deserves better than this and so do we.
“I think from our perspective we need to know that people are going to be keeping in touch and letting us know what’s going on.
”It means offenders on standard fixed sentences and due to be released after half their term will now leave after a third."
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The death of PC Andrew Harper was a horrific crime. Our thoughts are with his family and friends, and we share the anger from the police community that we are in this position.
“Thanks to tireless campaigning by Andrew’s family, Harper's Law means that anyone convicted of killing an emergency worker whilst committing a crime now gets a mandatory life sentence.
"This Government has gone further by introducing a presumption that anyone convicted of murdering a police, prison or probation officer is handed a whole-life order.
“We have been clear that we wanted to go further and block more offenders from getting out sooner into their sentence, but could not do so without risking prisons reaching capacity and collapsing.
"If that happened, police could not make arrests, courts could not remand offenders and there would be unchecked criminality on our streets.”