In a previous piece for this publication, published online in the summer, I opined that the government’s flagged proposal to exempt only unlawful act manslaughter convictions from their early release scheme was likely to fail (see ‘An unlawful exception?’, 25 August 2026).
This was in the context of ministers trying to work out ways to ensure that the killers of PC Andrew Harper do not benefit from early release as part of the government’s package to make more prison places available.
One of the solutions reported to be under consideration was an exemption from the early release opportunity for those serving a sentence of imprisonment for unlawful act manslaughter. Fortunately, the government has become alive to the flawed nature of this option, and instead has proposed that all manslaughter sentences will be exempt from early release.
PC Harper was killed in 2019 after responding to a quad bike theft, when
