Sir Trevor McDonald’s blood felt cold as he drove along the dark Berkshire lane where a courageous police officer was dragged to death by a speeding automobile.

The experienced newscaster was filming a heartbreaking documentary on PC Andrew Harper’s young widow Lissie’s crusade for a change in the law to prevent other families from going through what she had.

“I couldn’t believe he was through with his shift.” He had finished his duties for the day and was on his way home when he answered a 999 call and was pulled down that dark path.

“His coworkers saw his stab vest before they noticed his wounded body.” It’s just too awful to put into words.”

Since her husband’s horrible murder, Lissie has pushed to ensure that anybody who kills an emergency worker is sentenced to life in prison.

Surprisingly, Harper’s Law will be enacted into British law in less than three years.

Sir Trevor was sceptical of Lissie Harper’s initiative when he first heard about it.

He changed his mind after seeing the 30-year-old widow at her Oxfordshire home.

“She opened the door,” Sir Trevor adds. I looked at her and thought, you’re far too young and defenceless to be classified as a widow.

“And then she talked so eloquently. She explained what had happened, her emotions, and what she intended to do. I couldn’t believe her brilliance and determination.”

Lissie informs the senior newscaster in the documentary, “You can’t ever repair melancholy, but you can learn to live with it better.”

“I want to leave something behind that I know Andrew would be pleased of.”

“Otherwise, it’s a shameful waste of an incredible person’s life.”

Lissie tells in The Killing of PC Harper: A Widow’s Fight for Justice how she found out her spouse of just four weeks had been murdered.

“It was quite late at night, and I heard a big tap on the door assuming it was Andrew returning home, and he had forgotten his key or something,” she adds.

“But when I peered down out the window and saw a police officer in uniform, I thought, well, this isn’t right.”

Lissie tells in The Killing of PC Harper: A Widow’s Fight for Justice how she found out her spouse of just four weeks had been murdered.

“It was quite late at night, and I heard a big tap on the door assuming it was Andrew returning home, and he had forgotten his key or something,” she adds.

“But when I peered down out the window and saw a police officer in uniform, I thought, well, this isn’t right.”

“He sat me down and quietly informed me that Andrew had died.”

“I just recall feeling as though those words were the strangest thing to me.

“I believe I told him, ‘But we just got married, it can’t be real.'”

“A few minutes later, he told me, ‘We have guys in custody.'”

“‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘Was it not an accident?’ ‘No, we don’t think so,’ he responded.

“It was a secondary type of shock.” Someone has assassinated him.

“It’s all a swirl of agonising anguish.” In such a short period of time, we’d gone from the best day of our lives to the worst.

“It seemed as though my life had come to a halt.” Nobody expects to be a widow at the age of 28.”

“Lissie was absolutely distressed, she was unwell, she was just a disaster really,” her mother, Julie Beckett, recounts. A small girl whose world had just come crashing down around her.

“As parents, watching your kid suffer and not being able to alleviate their suffering is horrible, simply unbearable.”

Lissie also adds that 6ft 5in Andrew didn’t talk about his employment as a Thames Valley Police officer.

She says: “I think he probably didn’t want to worry me. He had a very strong moral compass.

“He wanted to be this force of strength and act as a barrier between the people who do wrong in the world and the people who need protecting from it.

“I always just, maybe naively, assumed that he would be okay.”