Widow of killed PC Andrew Harper dating another 999 worker four years on | UK News

The widow of a police officer who was killed hours before jetting off on their honeymoon has shared her experiences finding new love after suffering terrible grief.

PC Andrew Harper was 28 when he was caught in a strap attached to the back of a car and dragged down a country road by three burglars who were trying to steal a quadbike in Berkshire in August 2019.

He died after suffering severe injuries just hours before he was due to clock off and go on his honeymoon with new wife Lissie.

Lissie has now spoken about her new romance on podcast The Stigma of Grief, where she says she has felt pressure to be seen as grieving but feels it’s important to live her life again.

She said: ‘There’s this expectation to be this figure, the grieving widow… like we’re expected to wear black for the rest of our lives and sit and mourn. It’s not sustainable… and it’s not fair.

‘Although some people resign themselves to being alone for ever, that’s not the case for me.

‘It’s normal to feel scared and wonder if you’re doing the right thing. It’s a common feeling of “do I deserve to feel happy again? Am I betraying the person I love who isn’t here?”

‘I think probably most of the people who sadly aren’t with us would want their loved ones to find happiness again.

‘It’s not going to be the same, it’s not going to be better or worse, it’s just going to be different and that’s been really important for me to find that again.

‘There’s no right or wrong time, no matter what anyone else says.’

Lissie, from Oxford, admitted her first date with the 999 worker, who she hasn’t named, felt ‘strange’ after being with her husband for so long, MailOnline reports.

‘You become a different person when you go through something like this,’ she added.

‘You kind of grow out of the person you were before because you have no choice.’

Lissie, now 32, led a campaign for harsher sentences for attacks on emergency service workers after three people were sentenced for Andrew’s manslaughter.

She felt compelled to lobby for change after gang ringleader Henry Long, 19, got 16 years after admitting PC Harper’s manslaughter, while Albert Bowers, 18, and Jessie Cole, 18, were sentenced to 13 years after being convicted of manslaughter but acquitted of murder in 2020.

When Harper’s Law came into effect last year, she said: ‘I will never be rid of the hollowness that the burden of grief inflicts, but I know without hesitation that my husband Andrew would be immensely proud of this achievement in his name.

‘Andrew believed in fairness and peace – he had the strongest moral compass of anyone I ever met and that is why I know without a shadow of a doubt that he is smiling down at me with pride and love as Harper’s Law, his legacy is now achieved.’

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