An unlawful exception?

Ministers are presently trying to work out ways to ensure that the killers of PC Andrew Harper do not benefit from the proposed early release scheme. This scheme, which will result in certain categories of prisoner benefitting from expedited release, will provide much-needed capacity within prisons to hold the most dangerous of offenders.

One of the solutions reported to be under consideration is an exemption from the early release opportunity for those serving a sentence of imprisonment for unlawful act manslaughter.

Of course, it is no coincidence that PC Harper’s killers are both serving 13 years for that precise offence, following sentence on 31 July 2020, when the sentencing judge stated: ‘Here death was caused in the course of an unlawful act which involved a deliberate and premeditated intention to drive, if accosted by the police, in a way which was reckless as to whether the police officers died or