The widow of PC Andrew Harper has started dating another emergency worker four years after her husband’s tragic death.
Lissie Harper, 32, has not named her new lover but said that she did feel scared and had previously questioned if she was doing the right thing.
PC Harper died aged 28 after suffering severe injuries after he was caught in a strap attached to the back of a car and dragged down a country road in Berkshire by the fleeing burglars who were trying to steal a quad bike in August 2019.
His death happened just hours before he was due to clock off and begin his honeymoon with his new wife, Lissie, and the gang of three thieves were sentenced for his manslaughter in 2020.
Speaking about her new romance for the first time on the podcast The Stigma of Grief, Lissie revealed she felt pressure to be seen as grieving but feels it’s important to live again.
The widow of PC Andrew Harper has started dating another emergency worker four years after her husband’s tragic death. Lissie Harper, 32, has not named her new lover but revealed that she did feel scared and had previously questioned if she was doing the right thing
PC Harper died aged 28 after suffering severe injuries after he was caught in a strap attached to the back of a car and dragged down a country road in Berkshire by the fleeing burglars who were trying to steal a quad bike in August 2019
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.
‘And although some people resign themselves to being a lone 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?’ The business owner said: ‘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 felt ‘strange’ after being with her husband for so long.
‘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.’
Since PC Harper’s passing, Lissie campaigned for harsher sentences for attacks on emergency service workers.
Speaking about her new romance for the first time on the podcast The Stigma of Grief, Lissie revealed she felt pressure to be seen as grieving but feels it’s important to live again
She felt compelled to lobby the Government after being ‘outraged’ by the prison sentences handed to the three teenagers responsible for killing her husband.
When Harper’s Law came into effect in 2022, 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.’
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.
