'Bunking' Burnham packs for holiday as early prison releases spark outrage

0:03The Telegraph.

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0:42We are all less safe. That's the verdict of one of P.C. Harper's police colleagues of the government's decision to release thousands of dangerous criminals early, including two of the police officers' killers. So while Andy Burnham packs his running shorts for a two-week holiday, the reality for victims of violent crimes is far less sunny. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Poppy Coburn. And me, Tim Stanley.

1:16Poppy, let's talk about the late, great Rod Liddell, whose death was announced yesterday. it's come as a big shock because he wasn't that old because he's only 66 66 he was such a huge character within fleet street but if we are going to talk about him we have to have fun talking about him absolutely because he was an enormously fun man and there have been so many obits people should read alison pearson's one for the telegraph it's beautifully written it captures him very well but nothing compares to the man himself. And to give just one small example of his writing style and his politics, this is a quote from a column in 2025 that was titled And Now Let's Bomb Glastonbury.

2:02A small-yield nuclear weapon such as the American W89 dropped on Glastonbury in late June would immediately remove from our country almost everybody who was hugely annoying. You would see a marked reduction in the Kefaya clan for a start, and all those middle-class extinction rebellion protesters would find, in a nanosecond, that their rebellion was pointless because extinction had arrived even more summarily than they expected. Go on, glue yourselves to that, Poppy and Oliver. No! Rod! I'm sure he had a low opinion of Tim's as well. Well, you know, I don't mind because usually when people are mocking my name, it's because their dog is called Poppy.

2:45So I get a lot of people saying, oh, lovely name. My carver poo is a poppy. And it's like, oh, fantastic. I can't walk through a park. My head is turning constantly. I'm a massive fan of Oddle, as I imagine every single listener of the Daily Tea is as well. Yes. Something I have enjoyed in the last 24 hours is watching the complete and utter meltdown on Blue Sky. Remember Blue Sky? That kind of liberal hug box echo chamber for people that couldn't quite hack it on out. Sounds like a failed TV station in the 1990s. Quite. Probably has even lower ratings than that. But they've been very, very angry because obviously Rod Liddle represents everything that's so terrible about these beastly right wingers.

3:23Ignore the fact that Rod Liddle was a member of the Labour Party for most of his life. Until he was expelled because he accused them of anti-Semitism. Of course. Put all of that aside because facts are not welcome in Blue Sky. But I thought there was something really wonderful about the fact he's winding up all of these tedious liberals from beyond the grave. isn't that just a sign of his brilliance? Yes, well people who didn't get irony I mean his most infamous column was I never got a job as a school teacher because I'm worried I want to shag all the pupils but we mustn't why can't we laugh at that?

3:55It makes this sound bad when we do it a lot but it's so funny, you must read it everyone who hasn't read it is brilliant it's so funny The old cliche is that the right thinks the left are wrong the left thinks the right are evil but I think there's also a different attitude towards art, which is I could read a column saying Tim Stanley should be shot at dawn. And I would think I don't agree with the argument, but I think it's very well written. That's a bold, what a headline. What a headline. I do think there's something in the small C conservative, and Rod was a conservative socialist. There's something which appreciates quality, whatever the argument is.

4:34And this is something the left cannot do. They can't just look at Rod Liddell and say, he was really funny. I disagree with everything he had to say, but you know what? He was really funny. They have to judge the quality of his work by his politics. Yes. We should all be grateful for them responding the way that they do because it actually amplifies the humour. Because when you see these po-faced individuals getting increasingly incensed by reading something that you and I just would see as a joke, that is the purpose of the column, to wind people up, you go, wow, what a successful column. It has wound up every single person you would predictably expect to respond in the way he did.

5:10That was his brilliance. And I can just imagine the column that he would write about the response to his own death. Yes. He's up there in heaven right now, smoking, having a glass of wine. He did give up the facts, but there is one account that someone gives of when he was working in the BBC, every time they went into the gents' toilets, he was sitting by the window, with the window flung up, leaning out, having a cigarette. What a patriot. Just operating within the boundaries of the BBC's ban on smoking. to think this man was once editor of the Today programme. Can you imagine? Unfortunately, I can't.

5:43I'd also love to know, we should actually hold a seance and ask, I'd love to know what Rod would think of Andy Burnham. Yes. And his holiday. Because Andy is taking two weeks off. Now, if you do the maths, he's been Prime Minister for two weeks. And I don't know if this is Angela Rayner's employment bill kicking in. but it seems the new rule in this country is that for every day on, you get a day off. He makes Keir Starmer look like Margaret Thatcher. You know, Mr. I'm always on holiday. My favourite is there's the joke online about the pop star Dua Lipa that she's never in the studio because she always seems to be holidaying around Europe.

6:27How sweet that Andy Burnham has taken his prescription of being an influencer rather than a politician literally and just hasn't bothered to turn up to the job. Just on holiday. Maybe we'll get a good album out of it. But of course, he hasn't even been leader of the Labour Party that long. He has not. And I get it that campaigns are exhausting and making TikTok videos is very, very tiring. Tell me about it, Tim. And I believe very strongly that politicians should have time off. I mean, I'd like them to take maybe nine months off of the year. Just leave us alone for nine months. Just do a big tour around Europe.

7:01Do a gap year. Why not just take the whole year off? Right, exactly. Go and see. Look into a different line of work. You can see Africa. You're always talking about how wonderful that is. Take that gap year. But having said all of that, I do feel two weeks on the job and then two weeks off is taking the mic. Oh, it's completely taking the mic. I mean, look, I understand when people make the argument that you need people to be well-rested. He's only just coming to the job. It is silly season, so nothing's happening. Sorry, but it is happening, actually. I mean, yesterday we were at this massive reform press conference, which is all about migration policy.

7:38We have scandals coming out the wazoo. We have a current by-election that's happening in Clacton that might decide the political future of Nigel Farage. Apparently, it's not silly, Susan, anymore. Lots is actually happening in politics. And so it's not good enough for Andy Burnham, who has dodged every single opportunity to scrutinise him by the media. He did not want to hold press conferences. When he has actually introduced future policies, he said, well, let's not talk about it now, please, Mr. Naughty Journal. list because it's a very sensitive subject. Give me a year. I'm halfway through a parliament, but give me a year.

8:11Does he think he's a civil servant? You do actually have to turn up to work. You are the leader of this nation. And so I find it a little bit difficult to buy the argument that he's been working really hard and so we should give him a break. He hasn't actually done anything. No, he's come in. He's given an emotional speech about social care. He's made some videos about baps and sandwiches and things like that. And he spent quite a lot of money. And someone on the paper's got to do the maths on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if his two weeks in office amounts to something like£100 million spent a day.

8:46I mean, in a way... Is that for the all-inclusive holiday or is this his political... Well, this is the bus. I mean, I don't know if he's going around Britain by bus, but, you know, things like putting the£2 limit on buses, which, by the way, is not a very devolve-ish thing to do. But I am starting to think, maybe we need these two weeks off from Andy because we couldn't afford him to work full time. He's so expensive. But while he is away, one thing he's got to keep track of is migration. Because of course, people are still trying to come here. And the French Maritime Service has confirmed that it has rescued 157 migrants who were trapped in a small boat fire on the English Channel.

9:24And happily, every migrant on board has survived. But in a way, this almost gives some moral ballast to Nigel Farage's argument that he was making when he was rolling Operation Fortress, that stopping small boats from crossing the Channel is not just an issue of national security, it's also a humanitarian necessity. I mean, it's really quite extraordinary timing here, isn't it? Because it's exactly what Zia Yusuf said to us yesterday, which is, I asked him the question, is this a military operation or is it humanitarian? And he did answer, it's a bit of both. You know, we are ultimately trying to stop the crossings from coming over the channel, but people are losing their lives and at a much increased rate.

10:04And what's interesting about this particular example of this boat that caught on fire, it was a very large boat. I'm not sure we can say small boats anymore, medium boats, large boats. Many boats are crossing over and none of them should be. But this is because the people traffickers are trying to squeeze out as much profit as possible by jamming as many people as possible onto these boats to make the crossing. And because apparently the French have become more sophisticated at actually stopping boats, they're having to pay their luck by saying, OK, more boats are going to be intercepted, so we need bigger boats that when they do get through, at least we'll get the money from the people getting transited over.

10:41So the tactics are constantly changing. You can't look away from this. This is a point you made to me yesterday. We didn't get a chance to bring it up with reforms. but it happened in the 2000s, didn't it? That people were coming by cars. Well, people used to open the back of their van, they'd come back from France to bring some brie and some wine and suddenly you'd find that there were three guys in there with you. Yeah, and so the government, New Labour, did a pretty good job actually of clamping down on that and that's why people moved to small boats instead. And whatever you do, so long as there is a pull factor, so long as there is a reason to come here, which is the belief that once I'm here I will stay, either because the government will look after me or I can slip into the black market economy, people will continue to come.

11:19Now, you asked Reform at the press conference about what the French government will think. And Zia said, fine, we'll have the diplomatic row. Well, you've got what you want, because you're not even in government. And Zia Yusuf has a diplomatic row. The Elysee Palace has hit back and said it would be a violation of French sovereignty if Operation Fortress went ahead, saying it also violates maritime law and international law, and adding separately as part of the measures put in place of the UK and the arrangements deployed at the local level, the Interior Ministry states that the number of crossings is down in 2026.

11:54At the same time, the European Union is demanding that Spain undergo special measures. This is because of the mass crossing at Suta. We're still discussing the right way to pronounce that. And the issue here seems to be that we were all marvelling at the fact that the large number of people came but then went back. But the European Union doesn't seem to be buying that Spain is in control of the situation and isn't buying that all of those people have disappeared and won't make their way into the rest of Europe. Yes. I think when you look at those two stories, you go, hang on, that must be contradictory, right?

12:30Because what reform is trying to do is secure Britain's borders. But here is fortress Europe in full effect. It's cracking down on a, can we say, rogue member state that has kind of gone slightly off the rails with immigration. Actually, I do think it is consistent. They are thinking about what is best for Europe. The UK is not included in that grouping anymore. And as increasing numbers of member states do take quite a hard line on migration, it's not just Maloney anymore. As you said yesterday on the podcast, it's Scandinavian countries. Increasingly, it is France. Spain really is the outlier here.

13:03They are going to take more extreme measures where they think when a state that is outside the European Union is trying to offload this problem onto them, they'll go, no, no, no, no. We're having to deal with 400 ,000 people entering Italy every year. What we don't need is the UK to return migrants that have already made their way through continental Europe on a trip to get there. And I think, to be honest with you, you can understand where they're coming from. Because the real issue, and again, we have spoken about this before, is by the time they have crossed the Mediterranean, for many people, it's already too late.

13:34because then you are under the jurisdiction of European law. Suddenly human rights matter. They matter in a geographical sense, which is ironic because they're supposed to be universal, but apparently they're not. And so it is going to be very difficult for reform to now back up what they said yesterday, which was in no uncertain terms that they were willing to go all the way with this. They were willing to deploy the Navy and basically daring the French to stop them. I mean, they were saying, would the French really shoot a boat that was carrying innocent civilians on a humanitarian mission? Well, would they?

14:06Yes. Because that's a pretty strong statement from France, saying that they're not playing ball with this. They seem to think it's a pushback. Nigel doesn't think it's a pushback. So are we going to go to war with France? I mean... Yes. It's just the basic question of how do you get people to go into the boat? And we're not saying it can't be done. Yes. It's just that it has to involve force. It will have to be. And that's not a humanitarian operation. Quite. It's a military operation. A humanitarian operation might be there is a boat. We take the people from the boat and then we take them to a hospital or something.

14:34It's not we pick people up at gunpoint and then we drop them back on the beach that they came from. And as regards to Suta, the movement of people is a little like the tide going in and coming out again. And what has been left behind tragically on the streets is around 860 children who are reported to be begging for food and for water. which makes sense because the young men who've made that crossing and can go back again well they're young and fit they can look after themselves but what about the kids who are also dragged along in all of this so you know there is a humanitarian consequence well it's the will they won't they romance story of the summer obviously i am talking about nigel farage and rupert lay a lot has been apparently happening overnight so first it starts out that rupert lay puts out this video where he says he's willing to potentially have some kind of dealings with Nigel Farage and this is the video where he's wearing a lovely blue shirt that complimented his eyes and it had soft music it had the the vibe of a you need to think about your funeral advert on GB News or at least it's on gold bullion so he sends out his five points before I'll take you back Nigel if I'm going to have another go at this relationship you've got to change and these are the five things you need to do uh some of those things I think Nigel Farage said pretty strongly that he was not going to engage in I think people on his own shadow not going to sack people as a shadow cabinet not going to ban kosher and halal slaughter etc etc rupert low then hits back after the press conference yesterday he publishes a text message of nigel farage promising to call but like all bad boyfriends he didn't actually make the phone call so it doesn't seem to work out well for them but now we hear that nigel farage is apparently in talks he was very clear yesterday he just said talks there's not necessarily going to be a pact made we're just having a conversation We're just exploring.

16:20It's like in America when people want to run for president. I'm exploring the opportunity. Nothing is set in stone yet. So what's going to happen? Do you think they're actually going to have some kind of meaningful path? I don't know. And like a lot of rom-coms I've watched, I don't care. It's not my genre. What I do find fascinating, and we're going to discuss this with Michael Crick in a special edition on Sunday, what could happen between reform and restore. What I do find interesting is this question of, are they really just two parties that if you put them together, they become a coherent whole?

16:53One to the calm one. I'm not sure about that, because I think a lot of the reason why Restore is there is because there is a side to the right which really dislikes Nigel Farage. Yeah. And so I'm not certain that you can negotiate those two coming back. and then you have this question of what role to Restore people play within the new party, given that many of them are very controversial. I mean, Lowe seems to be far more liberal and old-fashioned than many of his key supporters. He's a bit of a Tory. He's basically a Tory, isn't he? The latest YouGov voting intention suggests that if you put the two parties together, you'd take Reform's 23 % and add to it only 4 % from Restore.

17:36Is that enough? and would Nigel want to do something which could compromise his support among more moderate voters? Well, quite. But what's interesting about the YouGov poll is it still puts reform one point ahead of Labour on 22%. So much for the burn and bounce. I mean, that was pretty short-lived, wasn't it? I think some people did know, I think John Curtis wrote about this, saying that if this is the burn and bounce, that's not very significant for Labour. People always make the point, which is when a prime minister comes in on his first day, that is the height of his power because it's the height of his popularity.

18:09It's only really realistically going to be downhill here from Burnham. We know this because when the budget comes along, he will almost certainly have to take tax rises. And regardless how you dress up, people don't want more money coming out of their pocket. So, I mean, have people been overstaging reform's problems slightly? I mean, they're back on top again. And also reform tends to pull well when immigration is a major issue. One might argue it's partly suitor, it's partly reform making an immigration an issue by coming out with things like Operation Fortress. But the other issue that I suspect plays to their strengths is crime.

18:43And this is what we have to discuss, is the early release of criminals. So if you recall, under Labour's plans, thousands of offenders, including rapists, were scheduled to be released in order to reduce the threat of crowding in prisons, which they said that come the autumn, prisons would be overcrowded and there'd be a crisis. So thousands are scheduled to be released. Annie Burnham comes in and says, I'm going to pause that program. Well, he's done a review and he has decided to exclude people guilty of sexual offences. And Burnham has written in this newspaper that he has, quote, pushed to the very limits of what is possible, but could not exempt more criminals without the prison system collapsing within months.

19:31In an attempt to prevent future overcrowding, overcrowding, he's revealed that he has asked his justice secretary to consider early release of more women prisoners, quote, given the lower risk they generally pose. That's something which is quite often disputed by experts, actually. I would dispute that one quite strongly. Who makes the point, it's so hard for women to get into prison and they commit such far fewer crimes that if a woman is in prison, it's generally because they need to be in prison, because they have very serious mental health problems or they are in fact violent offenders. But the key thing is, is that even with some of the exemptions that he has now passed, people now are still guilty of very serious violent crimes can still be released and will be released.

20:12Exactly. And that's the problem for multiple reasons. I think even if you accept Andy Berman's framing, which is that we have inherited a problem where the Conservative Party failed to build enough prisons, so overcrowding has become endemic. That is all true. Correct. That we have to do this in the short term. The decision to release violent criminals, people who have committed crimes like manslaughter. These are not petty criminals. This is not shoplifting we're talking about here or white collar crime. the reason why I'm very very concerned about this is that it's not just that we have a crisis within the prison system we have a really serious crisis in the probation system yeah we are terrible monitoring criminals so we already know that the fact these people haven't served a proper sentence I doubt very highly they've been rehabilitated for many of them they probably haven't even shown remorse for the crimes that they've done they've barely been in jail long enough to show remorse for these crimes and now they're being released back into our streets and the apparent protection we have is a probation service which often just loses track of criminals.

21:12Electronic tagging, which we know very well, doesn't really work properly. Actually, they catch people with electronic tags, usually at the point where they've already committed the crime, so it's a bit useless. And then you cycle back around to the original problem, which is jails are full. So you can't really punish them for having committed a crime. So I think all these mitigation efforts that the government is making a big deal out of, and Andy Burnham has been talking about in his column today, They are just as broken as the prison system is. So we will be less safe as a result of these overcrowding issues.

21:43I think when the public fully understands this, the two things that will blow their minds is first, that they ever considered letting out people. Grooming gang members. Guilty of such appalling crimes, really without any consideration as the effects upon the victims. But the second thing is that these changes are not just a one-off amnesty-style change of, look, we've got this crisis in the short term, so we can let out this small number of people, but we're doing this so we don't have to ever do this again. No, it is a radical reform of sentencing in this country, which is designed both to keep people for less time in prison.

22:22So, you know, in the past, you'd serve two-thirds of your sentence. For some, that's now reduced to half. But also at the other end, this is about preventing whole classes of criminal from ever entering the prison system, because there will now be a preference towards sentences of up to one year being served suspended, i.e. at home. So Labour is trying to fix the problem forever by just making it harder to spend time in jail in general. It's very important to note that this is not a temporary solution to a crisis that is not, in all fairness, entirely Labour's fault. Often when a change is made that affects people's lives when it's done by government, just look at income tax.

23:02Temporary doesn't actually mean temporary. It does mean permanent. And I think people should also be worried that when James Timpson was put in as prison's minister, he's no longer in that job. That was one of the early big ticket announcements that Keir Starmer made. This is someone who believed ideologically, not pragmatically, in releasing prisoners early from jail and rehabilitation and getting people back into work. That is not a doctrine that is entirely wrong. But I think in this country, when people are already looking at the sentences that people get and saying, that seems incredibly short, not knowing, they will only serve half of that sentence.

23:38That is a serious problem. People do not feel that justice is being done here. And so I think there's been a bit of a slate of hand where it's been presented by Labour as something that's completely out of their control. And it's not my fault, Governor, you know, this is the Tories' fault, but it's not that. It's actually something that's much more insidious that's gone wrong in our criminal justice system. If individual citizens want to forgive offenders, that is a very noble thing to do, a very Christian thing to do. If employers want to employ ex-cons, very noble, very Christian thing to do.

24:06But the state is not a charity. The state is there to maintain law and order. It has to have a harder heart, because if it doesn't, it is the rest of society that pays the price. And the Telegraph, in its campaigning mode, has brought people's attention to a very painful example of how this will affect victims. So two people who are scheduled to be released are Albert Bowers and Jesse Cole. And those are two of three people who were involved in the killing of PC Andrew Harper back in 2019. If you remember, it's a terrible story. He was dragged along a country road for miles by these people. one of them went in for murder two went in for manslaughter and under this prison release system boas and cole are set to come out and people have described this as deplorable and his mother has said it would be a slap in the face and an insult so to speak to us about this now is eileen o 'connor who is the chair of the thames valley police federation and she gives us the perspective here of ordinary cops who are just trying to maintain law and order, see one of their own being killed, and now have to confront the fact that the state is going to let two of the killers out early.

25:32Hey, before your Q3 call, I've got the campaign brief ready, built from last quarter's data and the competitive landscape. Great. Did you include the differentiation angle the CMO asked for? Already in there. Three angles no competitors using right now. Just need your approval. Approved? Thanks. Oh, agents, where would we be without you? Hmm, somewhere with a lot more tabs open. Create your first Monday agent in minutes at monday.com. What makes a great pub? Is it the beer, the hospitality, the history? I'm Will Hawks, journalist and co-author of The Telegraph's Guide to the UK's Best Pubs. I've visited thousands of them and enjoyed a few pints along the way in my search for pub perfection.

26:17Now I've had the job of whittling down the best of what the nation has to offer. Enter your postcode to see if your local made our list or filter to find your new favourites. Visit telegraph.co.uk forward slash best pubs today.

26:35Nirav Modi was a billionaire diamond tycoon whose jewellery was worn by Hollywood stars like Kate Winslet. But in 2018, he was accused of masterminding one of the world's biggest ever bank frauds, and he disappeared. This is the extraordinary story of the rise and fall of Nirav Modi. And of how we caught him. He was in the news all the time. Where is Nirav Modi? Why can we not find him? He's one of the most sought after criminal in India. You owe a lot of people a lot of money, Mr. Modi, who would very much like to know where you are. Sorry, no comment. The Indians will think we're a laughingstock.

27:15Here we are seven years later still speaking about this case. They think it's a sham. The Diamond King, a new podcast from The Telegraph. With me, Mick Brown. And me, Robert Mendick. Out now.

27:35We're joined now by Eileen O 'Connor, who is the chair of the Thames Valley Police Federation. Thank you for being on The Daily Tea. I want to start by asking, what was the impact of the killing of PC Andrew Harper upon ordinary police officers? It's difficult to quantify what the impact was back nearly seven years ago when Andrew was killed on the 15th of August 2019. I think everybody will remember where they were, particularly colleagues across Thames Valley, when we learned of the news of Andrew's killing and the horrendous way in which he was killed. um so it's difficult to uh but it but in general it's a sense of loss tragedy um anger despair um you name it i'm sure uh if you asked any police officer from tens valley or anybody um down the country they would they would say that's how they felt at the time and and many and my members, that's how they feel now, compounded with what is going on now through the release programme that two of the individuals will be released early for killing a police officer.

28:55I want to emphasise this because some people might wonder, why do we stress how we respond to the death of a police officer? And I think one reason why we pick up on it is partly because it's about maintaining law and order in general. We can't allow people to do things to police officers like this because it undermines the entire system if that happens. But also for you in the police service, you deal with some of the best and the worst of human behavior all the time. But when one of your own colleagues is killed like this, I mean, that's got to have an enormous emotional impact upon the force.

29:33And therefore, I'm sure many officers are thinking we really want to see full justice for the people who were involved? Yeah so from a from a policing perspective police officers go to work every day and they put on that uniform they serve their communities to the best of their ability they will go to some horrendous incidents as you say they'll deal with the best and worst of society but ultimately they will run towards danger when others run away they'll put themselves in the line of fire to protect members of the public. Back during that horrendous incident, Andrew Harper was responding to a crime in progress.

30:15He shouldn't even have been there because he should have been off and he was due to go on his honeymoon. Having been recently married, he should never have been there. But that was the commitment that Andrew Harper and police officers up and down this country daily, they swear an oath to protect to serve and protect and they stand by that oath and unfortunately Andrew lost his life to to uh to that to the badge and to the oath that he served in the officer constable uh he's not the only police officer that's lost his uh his life tragically um a bit more needs to be done to support police officers um I've I've said repeatedly the demand across policing is is unheard of just now um the they are working they they were getting less than meaningful pay awards by this government and the previous governments um and they're being battered from pillow to post on a daily basis i think i think that's a really important point that you've made there because it's this idea of a kind of reciprocal relationship that you have with the government, which is that you do put your lives at risk.

31:27I mean, it's not that every police officer has to feel that their life is at risk every day, but people know that they might die in the line of duty that you would not expect if you are, say, political journalist, right? It's a completely different job. And so you should be held to a different standard. You require something back from the government. You require at the very least a kind of trust and respect. And I think there've been multiple instances in recent years where police officers have expressed their discomfort with how they've either been scapegoated when it was perhaps politically convenient.

31:57I'm thinking of the treatment perhaps in the Chris Carber case, the pretty horrific treatment that the officer involved in that incident had to go through over years and years of harassment. But also this feeling that when the worst happens, when a life is actually lost, the bare minimum you need is that the people who committed that crime must serve out their full sentence for justice to be done and I think it's one of those interesting ways where the experience of the police and the experience of the general public who have this idea of what justice looks like is being failed by people in government.

32:32Yeah I couldn't agree with you more in what you've said there. Our police officers need protecting and the protection is available there by the current set in government by the Prime Minister, by the Justice Secretary, protect them, particularly with this early release scheme, and the most heinous of individuals that they are going to keep behind bars, rapists, child grooming, etc, etc. We wouldn't expect anything else. But it's perverse in the next breath to say that the killers of a police officer who went through a trial were convicted of manslaughter, received a sentence and they've been let out having not even said a third or half of that sentence it's absolutely and it's even ridiculous when I say those words because you don't expect that I seriously did not expect it I wonder if this ties into I actually have a family member, my sister used to be in the police, my partner's sister also was a police officer, both have now left and when I was reading about this case I was thinking about not just recruitment but retainment of officers because they see these stories that we read about in the news and that's their daily lives that's their job and I think people don't quite understand how difficult it is now to remain in the police it is it is a very big ask because as you just pointed out the money is not what it used to be you may not get the support you need if something goes wrong and now to feel that if your life is put at risk you may not even see justice your family will not see justice.

34:12Do you think that that's going to affect recruitment and retainment? I mean, I can't see how it wouldn't. I think it will affect recruitment and retention. I think it will also affect the trust and confidence for police officers that they have across the government and their view around the governments and whether they're going to be protected or not. There is a rise in assaults against police officers and emergency workers. We have the new legislation for an assault on emergency worker. We have new legislation under Harper's law that was successful back in 2022, mandatory life sentences for the killing of an emergency worker.

34:51But that does not help justice for Andrew Harper and his legacy and his life and put a value on that for what he ultimately, he played the ultimate sacrifice for that. And that's what needs to change. I'll note that Lissy Harper, the officer's widow, has said that Andy Burnham's decision was, quote, an utter betrayal and an affront to justice. And some people feel that the two killers who are being released have also not displayed sufficient remorse, that they've not undergone the process that we expect prison to put people through of confronting what they have done and accepting responsibility for it.

35:30So would you accept that characterisation, given everything you've said, that the decision to release these two really undermines justice in this country and is shameful? Completely undermines justice, in my view. This is not justice. This is that the people who are serving any form of punishment and life sentence is Andrew Harper's widow, Lizzie, his parents, his family, his close friends, his colleagues. They are serving the life sentence of not having that man in their life. He should be progressing his career as a police officer. He should be building his own family. He should be here living his life.

36:11Instead, it was ripped away from him on that night, ripped away by those callous individuals who made the decisions to go out that night and commit the crime that they committed, initially the burglary, and then go on to kill Andrew Harper. they made the choices that night they decided they were going to take the action that they took and then they went to court went through the judicial system and they should face the full weight of that judicial system in my view and they've showed nothing less than contempt in their sniggering their lack of remorse lack of empathy around their involvement in that and the killing of Andrew Harper.

36:48I had a message from one of my members today who was an officer who attended the scene of that horrendous event on the 15th of August 2019. The officer's now left the force and he is sick to his core about this decision. He gave evidence in the trial, he was mocked by those individuals and he's still suffering now seven years down the line around the struggles that this this brings up for people um and i that it breaks my heart and i i will not rest and i will throw everything i can behind it to get this overturned in some way shape or form and that for me that looks like a judicial review a petition to keep these individuals behind bars, and they should face the full weight of the justice system.

37:48The impact of the decision upon police morale is obvious. Do you also feel that given that part of the role of prisoners to deter future crime by showing that if you do something like this, you will serve a proper sentence, does it actually pose a threat to policemen's safety when the government does things like this? What deterrent does this case show? We have three individuals who were convicted of the killing of Andrew Harper. We have one individual serving, forgive me, I think it was 17 years or 16 years. And we have these two individuals, and he's not eligible through this early release scheme.

38:28So they say. But we have two individuals who were given 12 years, each who are eligible under this scheme. What they haven't even served, the time they got to court, they would have served time on remand. They haven't even done a third of their sentence. How is that justice? How is that any form of deterrent for anybody that can go out and commit a crime and take the life of a police officer? There is no deterrent in my eyes. And that's what needs to change. If they're given 12 years, then they serve 12 years. They serve the maximum amount of time that they should because they have a life to come out to.

39:08They can start afresh. Where's Andrew Harper's life? So we are all less safe. We are, in effect, all less safe because of decisions like this. I think there's something that's so disgusting about this case for me as well, is that the police over recent years have become a bit of a punching bag for decisions that are not actually being made by the police, but are being made by the state or by the government at the time. Guidelines that are not properly defined. Guidelines that are not defined by... You know, the police officers in the street do not have control over these things. And I think the public will respond to this with anger when they do see their streets becoming more unsafe because they will become unsafe.

39:44We are releasing people from jail who have not served their proper sentence. And I think it's very, very important that we remember that this is not an operational decision taken by the police. This is a governmental decision that has been made by the people who are running the country. It's a political decision. and I think it's very very important in this time where the police are losing public trust to separate those two things out because that is not the reality on the ground of what has happened to what Andy Burnham has missed in my view is releasing prisoners white collar crimes I'm calling them white collar crimes crimes where they don't have a personal victim what you're doing is you're releasing violent and risky individuals and what measures are you going to put in place oh you're going to you're going to put them on a tag okay so what happens when they breach the tag well i'll tell you what happens we put them before the court and the court says oh away you go because you're going to remain on time because we're not going to send you back to prison because there's no room so it's a vicious circle these individuals and and the work and i've i've spoken to my chief constable last night and at length today who will be looking at the statistics across thames valley of re-offending of those individuals who are released from prisons who re-offend we're talking about serious violent individuals here that's what those two were they were seriously violent on that night and took the life of Andrew Harper and he and killed him so the public are right to be angry the public are right to be worried when these when these two and and all those other individuals that are released that there is just no deterrent for taking a life in my view and do you think the probation service has the capacity to cope with this number of people coming out well well this here lies the other issue and the wider issue here isn't it because they're quite clear that prisons are breaking i have uh i have empathy with prison officers and a rising number of assaults on prison officers and they have a they have a thankless task quite honestly more needs to be done to protect them but you so you don't want to break the prison service but what you're happy to do is break out the every other part of the criminal justice system because you're going to put the pressure on probation you're going to release these individuals into society who are going to be tagged when they breach the tag who's going to who does that come back to to land upon well it comes back to frontline officers to go and do bail checks etc and everything else but it's broken the whole system will be broken so probably the probation is not fit to to look after it not fit i don't i mean it's not in a place where it needs to be to cater for x amount of thousands of people being released within the space of September, October and the coming months.

42:28It's just not there. And the infrastructure isn't there. And it will have a knock on effect in policing. And we will be, as we always are, that emergency service that we cannot say no. And it's yet again, more pressure, more strain put on police officers and frontline police officers, all for a decision, in my view, that has not been thought through properly, that needs, there needs to be further considerations around releasing individuals who commit these fraud, white-collar crimes when they're not a risk to those, they're not a risk, a personal risk to potentially. But there's more work to be done.

43:11But what I will say is, if two weeks ago when I heard about this, on the evening of the Tuesday two weeks ago, if it wasn't for Andrew Harper's mother coming to the Telegraph and putting her story out that she'd received a letter from the justice system to say that they were subject to this early release programme. This would have gone under the radar and this policy would have gone through. So I'm grateful for Andrew's mother coming forward to highlight this issue. But for me, not enough is being done. And the fact that we've had the news last night where, as I say, child sexual rapists, grooming gangs, they will not be released.

43:58But in the next breath, you're happy to release these violent individuals. I can tell you that The Telegraph is very grateful to Lizzie Harper for working us on this and very grateful. I'm sure our viewers and listeners are very grateful to all your members for the risks they take to keep us safe. Eileen O 'Connor, Chair of the Thames Valley Police Federation, thank you very much. Thank you. We will be back tomorrow at 5pm.

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