Police chief John Apter found guilty of gross misconduct for sexual comments about widow

A police chief who bragged about wanting to “privately comfort” the heartbroken widow of a hero constable killed in the line of duty, has been found guilty of gross misconduct by a disciplinary tribunal.

John Apter made the sexualised remark about grief-stricken Lissie Harper, the widow of PC Andrew Harper, as she collected a posthumous award on behalf of her late husband at a ceremony in 2020.

Apter, who was chair of the Police Federation at the time, told colleagues: “I’d like to comfort her in my hotel room.”

Colleagues were stunned when he added: “I wouldn’t mind looking after her tonight.”

Pc Harper, from Wallingford in Oxfordshire, was killed while responding to a bike theft in Berkshire in 2019.

The 28-year-old Thames Valley officer was dragged to his death whilst chasing a gang of teenage thieves when his feet got caught in a strap hanging from the boot of their getaway car.

There was public fury when the killers were cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter the following year with Henry Long, 19, receiving a 16-year jail sentence and 18-year-olds Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers both handed 13 years in custody for manslaughter at the Old Bailey.

The case led to the successful Daily Express-backed crusade by the widow for Harper’s Law to be introduced, which extends mandatory life sentences to anyone who commits the manslaughter of an emergency worker on duty.

The panel, sitting at Hampshire Constabulary’s headquarters in Eastleigh, ruled Apter had made the comment about Mrs Harper during a staff “huddle” during preparations for the Roads Policing Conference in January 2020.

But they cleared Apter of a second allegation that in 2019 he said to a pregnant Police Federation colleague: “Maybe you’ll get a bum now.”

And he was also cleared of an allegation that he had touched the bottom of a woman at a restaurant while visiting London for the National Police Bravery Awards in December 2021 before asking her: “Is that okay?”

The officer, 55, insisted he had merely scratched the woman’s upper back and called the allegation “deeply hurtful”.

Apter, who started his career in policing in 1992, previously spoke out against the use of sexist nicknames as part of a canteen culture in the police in 2021, after the murder of Sarah Everard by serving officer Wayne Couzens.

He said: “Misogyny is not just a problem for women, it’s a problem for us all. Far too often there is silence when this takes place, and through this inaction, we are failing each other and wider society.

“We need to consign to the history books some of our canteen culture where sexist nicknames and derogatory remarks are made. When banter crosses the line to become sexist, derogatory or homophobic, that’s when it ceases to be banter.”