Lucy and Littler were due to fly home to the UK on 10 January 2025 when Coates received a knock on the door. It was Littler\u2019s mother. Lucy had been shot, she said. She was dead.<\/p>\n
It was only later she learned that Kris Harrison had been holding the gun. He was never arrested and a grand jury chose not to indict him, based on an investigation by local police.<\/p>\n
Eighteen months on, Coates is urging Andy Burnham\u2019s government to encourage US authorities to reopen the case after a Cheshire coroner ruled<\/a> that Lucy was unlawfully killed.<\/p>\n Coates, a deputy head teacher, raised Lucy as a single parent from the age of two. The pair had an incredibly close bond and would talk about virtually everything. As a child, she was always outside exploring, climbing trees, riding her bike, before becoming engrossed in Harry Potter books \u2013 a \u201ccomfort blanket\u201d she would turn to time and again into adulthood.<\/p>\n By the age of nine, she was a devout Swiftie, performing a Taylor Swift song at her school leavers\u2019 assembly and later going to three of her concerts. Anyone who knew Lucy knew her contagious laughter. \u201cWe call it like the Barbara Windsor belly laugh,\u201d said Coates, 49.<\/p>\n Like many young adults, Lucy went through difficult times. She struggled with the uncertainty of what she wanted to do with her life in her late teens, Coates said. She had counselling to help with the relationship with her father.<\/p>\n But Lucy had never been happier than in 2024. She graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with a degree in fashion buying and merchandising, began working at the retailer Boohoo and bought a home with Littler, her \u201csoulmate\u201d, five minutes from both of their mothers.<\/p>\n \u201cThat final year of Lucy\u2019s was the best year of her life,\u201d Coates said. \u201cShe was such a high achiever and she just really wanted the best for herself.\u201d<\/p>\n She soaked up life, both good and bad. But that meant she would sometimes get upset about events happening thousands of miles away.<\/p>\n Lucy with her father, Kris Harrison, days before she was shot dead in Texas. Photograph: Jane Coates<\/p>\n The murder of George Floyd<\/a> by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020 was one such event, Coates remembers. \u201cShe used to worry. She was an overthinker and used to cry a lot at different things. Sometimes it was with frustration because she was very passionate about things.\u201d<\/p>\n She was vehemently opposed to guns, an issue that caused tension with her father. Harrison, a telecoms executive originally from Liverpool, moved to Saudi Arabia for work when she was a child, later settling in Texas where he married Heather Harrison, an education recruiter, and had two daughters.<\/p>\n Harrison had bought a pistol for $500 (\u00a3370) from a colleague two years before Lucy\u2019s death. Gun owners over the age of 21 are not required to obtain training or a licence in Texas, one of the most firearms-friendly US states.<\/p>\n Her inquest in Cheshire<\/a> was told that Lucy had expressed concern to friends about her two younger siblings being in the house with her father\u2019s Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol.<\/p>\n Jane Coates said the US investigation was \u2018not rigorous or thorough enough\u2019. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n On the morning of her death, Lucy and her father argued about sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump, who was about to start his second term as US president.<\/p>\n Littler said Lucy had asked her father: \u201cHow would you feel if that was me and then the guy got away with it?\u201d<\/p>\n Harrison had replied that it \u201cwouldn\u2019t bother me that much\u201d because his two younger daughters live with him, Littler said. Lucy \u201cwent into floods of tears and ran upstairs\u201d, he added, and sent her father links to news articles about the Trump allegations, denied by the US president.<\/p>\n Littler had been in a relationship with Lucy for five years by that point and had known her since they were 12. \u201cThis was the sort of stuff that happened on a regular basis,\u201d Littler said. When he met Harrison in Prosper for the first time a year earlier, he told Lucy he did not want to go back. \u201cYou\u2019d feel like you\u2019re on eggshells.\u201d<\/p>\n Lucy and her partner, Sam Littler, had just bought a house together. Photograph: Jane Coates<\/p>\n Coates is keen to stress that Lucy was not shot \u201cbecause they\u2019d had an argument about Trump\u201d. Passionate debates were not uncommon between Lucy and her father: \u201cIt could have been an argument about anything.\u201d<\/p>\n Later that morning, the family were watching children\u2019s television shows and preparing to go to the airport when Harrison took Lucy\u2019s hand and escorted her to his bedroom.<\/p>\n Harrison\u2019s wife, Heather, looked at Littler in surprise and joked: \u201cHe never takes my hand like that.\u201d \u201cIt was mysterious,\u201d Littler said. \u201cNo one knew what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n Then came the loud bang. Initially they thought it was a prank, then Harrison screamed for his wife. They ran into the room and saw Lucy on the floor. Harrison, in shock, could not say what had happened. The pistol was on the bed. He stammered: \u201cI don\u2019t know, I don\u2019t know. Call an ambulance.\u201d<\/p>\n Bodycam footage shows Harrison telling officers he had shown his gun to Lucy when \u201cit just went off\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I pulled it out, it went off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Despite an officer smelling alcohol on Harrison\u2019s breath, he was not breathalysed. He initially denied drinking that day but later told police he had a drink problem and \u201ckeeps it going\u201d, an admission an officer understood to mean that Harrison drinks throughout the day.<\/p>\n CCTV obtained by police showed Harrison buying two 500ml cartons of wine earlier that day and discarding one of them outside a shop. He later admitted drinking that morning.<\/p>\n During his police interview, a Texas ranger explained to Harrison that the \u201cgun would only discharge if the trigger was pressed\u201d, according to a report released to the UK inquest. \u201cKris said \u2018OK\u2019,\u201d it noted. Yet authorities said they were unable to arrest Harrison because they could not prove intent.<\/p>\n Coates said she had told a Texas ranger that Harrison must have been pointing the gun at Lucy and pulled the trigger, to which she said he had agreed, but argued: \u201cWe just can\u2019t prove it.\u201d<\/p>\n On the same call in March 2025, a prosecutor said they were unable to conclude Harrison pointed the weapon at Lucy \u201cbecause that implies intent\u201d, Coates said. They told her the most they could say was that the \u201cmuzzle was aligned with Lucy\u2019s chest and a trigger was pulled\u201d.<\/p>\n Lucy had just graduated with first class honours from Manchester Metropolitan University. Photograph: Jane Coates<\/p>\n The police case was handed to a grand jury in Collin County, Texas, which decided in June last year Harrison should not be prosecuted. Its reasoning, and the evidence it considered, has not been made public.<\/p>\n Littler was also taken to the police station. While waiting to learn whether Lucy had survived, he said he heard a muffled conversation between officers in which they referred to the shooting as an \u201caccident\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe police just took Kris\u2019s word for it,\u201d said Coates. \u201cThe investigation was not rigorous or thorough enough.\u201d<\/p>\n She suspects the police would have treated Lucy\u2019s death more seriously had it happened in a less \u201cwhite middle-class prosperous area\u201d.<\/p>\n Of all the disturbing details they have learned, one of the most painful for Coates is that Lucy\u2019s body was tested for alcohol and other substances \u2013 all with negative results \u2013 while Harrison was not even breathalysed. \u201cThat\u2019s what we find absolutely incredulous,\u201d Coates said. She and Littler have submitted formal complaints to Prosper police department.<\/p>\n In February, the senior coroner for Cheshire, Jacqueline Devonish, ruled<\/a> that firing a pistol at Lucy from across the room was an act of gross negligence and that her death could not be considered accidental.<\/p>\n \u2018There were no authorities supporting us as British nationals wanting justice for a British citizen who was killed by a British citizen,\u2019 says Jane Coates. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Coates said the family had been let down, not just by the Texas authorities but also by the British government. She was told the Foreign Office would not be able to help them because nobody had been prosecuted.<\/p>\n![\"Bodycam](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1431.jpg\")
Bodycam footage shows Kris Harrison telling police he shot his daughter Lucy Harrison \u2013 video<\/p>\n