🚨 Vile PC Harper Killer Jessie Cole Still Branded “Violent Risk” In High-Security Jail — Yet Could Walk Free Early As Public Outrage Surges Past One Million Signatures
Vile PC Harper Killer Jessie Cole Branded ‘Violent Risk to Staff’ and ‘Climber’ in High-Security Jail as Early Release Outrage Hits One Million Signatures
Jessie Cole, the 24-year-old who helped drag newlywed police officer Andrew Harper more than a mile to his death, is still classified as a Category A prisoner and a direct threat to warders even as the government considers setting him free years early.
Prison files at HMP Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire list Cole as “violent,” a “risk to staff,” and “a climber.” He sits in one of only eight high-security jails in England and Wales because officials believe he would be too dangerous for a lower-category prison. Yet he remains on the standard regime, receiving £20 a week of taxpayer money for the canteen, television, DVDs and phone calls.
A prison source told The Sun: “Jessie should never have been considered for early release because of his crime. But his behaviour and danger risk also show exactly why Jessie is not ready to be freed. He is a difficult and dangerous prisoner and a lot of inmates and staff are terrified of him.”
The same source described Cole as intimidating and a trained boxer. He was previously held at Feltham Young Offender Institution, where he was known for bullying other inmates and climbing onto second-floor units or over railings when he wanted something — such as a missed gym session. “Feltham was full of killers and gang members but he was the worst,” the source said.
Normally a prisoner approaching the end of a sentence would be moved to a less secure jail. Cole has not been. That fact alone, insiders say, shows the Prison Service does not regard him as someone who will be walking out soon.
The revelation has poured fresh fuel on a fire that has already gathered more than a million petition signatures. Cole and his co-defendant Albert Bowers were both 17 when they sat in the Seat Toledo that tore PC Harper’s body along country lanes in Berkshire. They were convicted of manslaughter in 2020 and given 13-year sentences. Under the original rules they would have served two-thirds. A new early-release scheme designed to ease prison overcrowding would let them out after half their time — potentially as soon as January.
Henry Long, the 19-year-old driver, received 16 years and is not eligible for the same scheme.
The night of 15 August 2019 began as a routine theft. Long, Bowers and Cole targeted a £10,000 Honda quad bike at a property near Stanford Dingley. They hitched it to the back of the Seat with a tow strap and drove off into the darkness. The owner called 999. PC Andrew Harper, 28, and his colleague PC Andrew Shaw were already four hours past the end of their shift. They did not have to respond. They went anyway.
Harper, from Wallingford, Oxfordshire, had married his childhood sweetheart Lissie just four weeks earlier. They were due to leave on honeymoon. Instead he found himself on a dark lane confronting three teenagers.
Dashcam footage later shown at the Old Bailey captured the chaotic seconds. Cole unhooked the stolen bike and ran. Harper got out of the unmarked BMW and gave chase. As he closed in, both his feet slipped into the loop of the trailing strap. The car accelerated. Harper was lassoed to the vehicle.
For 91 seconds and just over a mile he was dragged at an average speed of 42.5 mph. His police badge, stab vest and pieces of uniform were scattered along the route. An eyewitness later said they thought they had seen the remains of a deer. Harper’s body was found in the road. He had suffered catastrophic injuries.
The three teenagers were tried for murder. A jury acquitted them of that charge but convicted Cole and Bowers of manslaughter. Long had already pleaded guilty. At sentencing, Mr Justice Edis called it “as serious a case of manslaughter as it is possible to imagine” and spoke of “wicked calculation.” Cole and Bowers were seen laughing and sneering as they left court.
Lissie Harper’s victim impact statement still cuts through the years. “Four weeks was all I had to call him my husband,” she said. “I will spend every day for the rest of my life with a hollowness that will never, ever be filled.”
Her campaign produced Harper’s Law — a mandatory life sentence for anyone who kills an emergency worker in the course of a crime. That law came too late for her husband’s killers. Now she and the public are watching the same men potentially walk free years sooner than the judge intended.
Whitehall insiders say Prime Minister Andy Burnham is “increasingly confident” that Cole and Bowers will be excluded from the scheme. A government spokesman stated: “We do not believe these offenders should be let out a day before they were due to, and the PM has asked the Justice Secretary to urgently fast-track a plan to keep a greater number of the most serious offenders, including these individuals, locked up.”
Stuart Blaik, the officer who led the original investigation, has said police are “appalled.” He noted that neither Cole nor Bowers showed any remorse in custody or at trial.
The contrast could not be starker. A man still marked as a violent risk to prison staff, still in a Category A high-security jail, still known for climbing and bullying, is being discussed as a candidate for early freedom. Meanwhile the widow of the officer he helped kill continues to live with a grief that began four weeks after her wedding.
Public fury has not faded. The petition demanding Cole and Bowers serve every day of their sentences has passed one million names. Officers who remember Harper’s last shift say the idea of his killers walking out early feels like a second betrayal.
Cole remains at Whitemoor. The alerts stay on his file. The source’s words hang in the air: he is not ready. The question now is whether the government will listen — or whether a man still considered too dangerous for an ordinary jail will be given another chance the public never asked for.