PC Andrew Harper’s killers deserved a longer prison sentence, as do most such culprits

There is an easy way to work out the actual prison sentence given to an offender after they have been convicted of a very serious crime.
News Letter editorialNews Letter editorial
News Letter editorial

Divide by two.

If the court says that the said offender has been sentenced to eight years behind bars, assume that they will serve four.

If the term is 12 years, assume it will be six years in reality.

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Sentencing is, in fact, a bit more complex than that — but not much.

Sometimes sentences stipulate a certain time to be served. Sometimes a sentence is a mix of prison and other penalties. The exact point at which you become eligible for parole depends on various factors, such as the length of the term.

But as a rough rule of thumb, a prisoner will be out after 50% of the headline sentence.

When you think of it like that, the 16 and 13 year terms to the thugs who killed PC Andrew Harper in England look pitifully inadequate. The police officer had tried to stop the thieves fleeing after they stole a quad bike in Manchester.

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Henry Long, Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers laughed when they were acquitted of murder. Their actions last year seem not to have caused them much internal pain.

But even if they had been convicted of murder, a ‘life’ sentence typically means about 15 years served, or 20 or more if it is murder of a police officer.

That is far, far too low for murder, which should get a minimum of 30 or 40 years served. After all, the culprit has deliberately ended someone’s life (or intended to cause them such grievous harm that their victim’s death was foreseeable).

Unless life terms are far tougher, all other sentencing is polluted. An armed robbery or drug smuggling, for example, should almost always be treated more leniently than murder.

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PC Harper’s mother Debbie Adlam deserves support for her bid to ensure that police killers get at least 20 years. But a wider toughening of sentences is also needed, across the UK.

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Alistair Bushe

Editor