PC Harper killers sentenced

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

16 year and 13 year sentences.

I doubt they would have got much more if the murder charge had been successful.

I am glad to see the judge wasn’t convinced by their arguments.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46544144

They have the same opportunities as everyone else, they just chose not to taken them up. They had been offending since before they were old enough to go to court, they won’t change.

People on MN telling us how people discriminated against them, now you see why!

Police have been murdered by people of many backgrounds. I think suggesting that the killing is specifically linked to them being travellers is unacceptable.
Dale Cregan wasn’t a traveller and what he did was abhorrent.

How many travellers do you know that legitimately work.

Quite a few actually!!! In fact I have just had 3 blokes come up and do some fencing work for me to improve my access to my field. They have lived up the road for around 20 years and are good honest people. They no longer live life on the road and have bought a house.

There are good and bad from all communities. It's borderline racism the way the traveller community is treated in this country. Perhaps it's time to lay down our differences and treat each other with a little respect. Enable them to get proper jobs and education and not discriminate against them because they live on the road and might be criminals.

They have the same opportunities as everyone else, they just chose not to taken them up.

I think that's a very naive assessment of the situation.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX - are you being deliberately obtuse? Pitchforks? This man died in the most appalling of circumstances because of what those young men did to him. People are rightly horrified and from what I have read on this thread they would have liked to have seen a murder case tried. How the fuck is that "pitchforks"?

I doubt they will come out as model citizens but they won’t be master criminals either - still, never mind, I'm sure they'll be able to cobble something together to kill or maim someone again.

A murder case was tried and they were acquitted.

His beautiful wife is now a widow and I think it's all so very sad. Only four weeks married too. RIP PC Andrew Harper.

It is very sad. I am glad the judge went as far as he could under the sentencing guidelines.

An absolute travesty of justice. I hope there is a petition to change it to murder I'd happily sign it.

They were acquitted of murder by a jury that heard all the evidence and legal submissions. We have trial by jury not by petition.

@ChazsBrilliantAttitude

I always wonder why - when they are sentenced - they are banned from driving for a set time. I doubt that they will do much driving for a while or that it will make a blind bit of difference when they come out

don't they realise they've ruined their own lives?

Hardly much to ruin in their lives, they are just stupid low thuggish creatures.

so how do you justify this as not being murder? They KNEW he was attached to the car and they still drove for over a mile at speeds of up to 60mph! That is intentional and therefore in most right thinking peoples minds it is murder!

But the prosecution couldn’t prove that. The defendants said they didn’t know he was there - I might think that’s bollocks, you might think that’s bollocks. But clearly there was nothing to prove beyond reasonable doubt they were aware

It used to be that the ban could pass whilst they were in prison but the law was changed so now my understanding is that judges can set a ban for when they come out.

If they drive whilst disqualified on probation that would stupid.

This should have been a much heavier sentence. 25 years at a minimum. They are remorseless criminals

I rarely get affected by crimes I read about but this has made me angrier than ever

Utter scum bags. A poster on another thread lives close by and her account of the manner in which the killers and their families act above the law, beating people up and the police saying it's not worth taking it further, just makes me so angry.

The judge's summing up was interesting, particular his comments about their intelligence and schooling. It makes me despair

Nobody who wasn't present at the trial and didn't hear all the evidence is in a position to say whether it should've been a murder verdict or not.

@lynsey91

I am sure there are decent hardworking travellers but, sadly, many are neither.

The way they treat their dogs is enough for me to know that many of them are scum. I have a lot of friends involved in dog rescue and some of the saddest and sickest cases of abuse are dogs belonging to travellers

Quite The way they treat animals is absolutely fucking disgusting. I too am involved in animal welfare. They claim discrimination but the only discrimination I see is they get away with murder.

@Willowmartha1

An absolute travesty of justice. I hope there is a petition to change it to murder I'd happily sign it.

So you think justice should be based upon the signing of petition, not the evidence presented in a court of law?

@TeaLibrary

This should have been a much heavier sentence. 25 years at a minimum. They are remorseless criminals

How? The judge gave them close to the maximum under sentencing guidelines

Disgusting pieces of shit. I hope they suffer in prison. Make me sick.

@FarTooSkinny

[quote TeaLibrary]
This should have been a much heavier sentence. 25 years at a minimum. They are remorseless criminals

How? The judge gave them close to the maximum under sentencing guidelines[/quote]
It's pretty obvious that wasn't a comment made by someone who's actually read them, let's be honest.

I've no quarrel at all with the argument that the guidelines should be changed, but people really need to understand that the judge is obliged to work with what he has. While they continue to exist in their current form, they are applicable. If anyone wants to start a petition, it should relate to the sentencing guidelines not to one individual sentence. Otherwise it's utterly pointless.