The mother of PC Andrew Harper said she is “grateful” her son’s killers will not be released from prison early, but they “are only back at where we were to start with”.

Grooming gang perpetrators and killers, including those responsible for PC Harper’s death, will be blocked from early prison release under major changes announced by Andy Burnham following a backlash over the scope of the scheme.

Some 5,000 prisoners had been due to be released early from September under plans to ease jail overcrowding, down from 6,000 after ministers intervened to exempt rapists and “serious” child sex offenders.

Burnham initially resisted calls to limit the scheme further after it emerged that Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole, who were convicted of Pc Harper’s manslaughter in 2020, would be eligible from next year.

But under fresh changes announced on Sunday, anyone convicted of unlawful killing, including all forms of manslaughter and death by dangerous driving, will be excluded.

Grooming gang perpetrators will also be blocked from early release after concerns were raised about a potential loophole in the system.

Indecent assault, an offence for which some child sex offenders were prosecuted before changes to sexual abuse laws in 2003, will be added to the list of exemptions to the scheme.

PC Harper’s mother Debbie Adlam told BBC Breakfast: “Of course, I’m grateful. I’m glad that we don’t have to go through any more of this now, and you know they will get to serve what they were actually supposed to be serving.

“It’s a really mixed bag of emotions, though, because on the one hand we are glad, but we’ve been brought through the mill, and we are only back at where we were to start with.

“Go back a few months, this is where we were – so we’re not making any headway or anything. We are just literally fighting to get back to where we were.

“So I am glad, and I’m really grateful that you know this has been the outcome for us. I worry immensely for people that it doesn’t happen for, and I think realistically the overall system has left some huge gaps still.

“And I just hope that what Andy Burnham says there, that they will be going into a further overhaul over the next few years – it really needs to happen for our sakes.”

She added that the past few months have been “quite traumatic really”.

Pc Harper was killed in 2019 and his three killers convicted of manslaughter Credit: Thames Valley Police

Asked if she thinks the country is getting it wrong, if a sentencing says that a particular crime gets 10 years then the person gets out at half or two-thirds, Ms Adlam said: “I really think we’re getting it wrong. When you look at what starting point we had for our sentences in this case, they started off as a decent amount, really, and then they were sliced away and sliced away, and the years came off for various things.

“I didn’t feel at the time it was sufficient, which is why we went to appeal. The offenders also went to appeal and we ended up with a stalemate. We remained where we were.

“But I think seeing some of the changes to the Sentencing Act, the suspended sentences that would have been two years, being up to three years. So, there’s going to be an awful lot of extra people. I can see what they’re doing, but each of those crimes has victims at the end of it.

“I think we are looking at diluting the system and I personally think we need deterrence and we need to be increasing, if anything, and I hope that once this whole system is looked at again that they are able to see a way to increase sentences, because our country seems to be going downwards, rather than, you know, in an upwards … kind of situation.

“We’re actually feeling, I think most public would say to you, ‘I feel like we’re going downhill as a country, and I think it needs some serious work’.”

Some offenders serving indefinite jail sentences, which were abolished in 2012, will also be freed through legislation to be brought forward by the end of this Parliament, the Prime Minister promised.

Burnham said “hundreds” of extra people will remain in prison following the changes, which will be laid in Parliament through secondary legislation at the beginning of next week.

The Prime Minister ordered a review of the changes to the Sentencing Act, which is being undertaken by Justice Secretary Alex Norris and is set to be published when Parliament returns from summer recess.

That followed widespread condemnation of the scheme when it emerged Bowers and Cole could be released halfway through their 13-year sentences.

They were passengers in the car that dragged Pc Harper down a country road after he got caught in a strap attached to the vehicle as they fled the scene of a quad bike theft in Sulhamstead, Berkshire, in 2019.

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