Travellers have moved back onto the site where PC Andrew Harper’s killers hid following a £4m taxpayer-funded revamp – and locals say they are already causing ‘sheer hell’.
The Four Houses Corner site was closed in 2020, a year after the policeman’s death in horrific circumstances.
But the costly redevelopment was approved to meet ‘legal requirements’ for traveller accommodation despite anger about many other public services being cut and furious opposition from PC Harper’s mother and former police force.
Nearly five years after the horrendous crime, a revamp of the site was approved by West Berkshire Council in March 2024 despite opposition from PC Harper’s mother Debbie Adlam and the officer’s old force, Thames Valley Police.
Families moved back into the Four Houses Corner site in Ufton Nervet, Berks, just weeks ago after the huge renovation was complete.
But neighbours say that already the site has been damaged, children are terrified to go out, local residents have been verbally abused and rubbish has been dumped.
Other travellers who were moved into nearby houses to make way for the renovations also cause ‘mayhem’ locally, with frequent fighting and anti-social behaviour, it is claimed.
One local, who lives in a £600,000 home across the road, said: ‘The travellers being there is hell. They’ve already damaged the site, despite millions being spent on it. It’s a tip, they’ve created so much rubbish. The fence has been damaged. They’ve dumped stuff there.
‘They have verbally abused locals. It’s disgusting. The whole thing is horrendous. They have caused sheer hell. Locals have been abused. It’s sickening. Since they moved in, there’s been an increase in crime. Our children are scared to go out.’
The traveller site at Four Houses Corner after taxpayer-funded revamp despite opposition
Debbie Adlam with her son, PC Andrew Harper, who was killed in 2019 after challenging thieves
PC Harper was caught in a tow rope and dragged at 40mph along a mile of country lanes as he tried to stop three teenage boys from stealing a quad bike.
His callous teenage killers Henry Long, Albert Bowers and Jessie Cole fled to the site near Ufton Nervet, Berkshire, where they hid, destroyed evidence and were later arrested.
The trio were cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter in a verdict which shocked the nation.
The site features 17 double-berth caravan pitches, ‘day buildings’ containing kitchens, bathrooms and living areas, two parking spaces each, provisions for electric car chargers and a children’s play area.
Another local near the site said: ‘It’s disgusting. Our basic taxpayer-funded services are being stripped back, but the council can find millions for travellers.
‘I’m not anti-traveller, but they should not be there. It’s so disrespectful. It’s sickening. This crime ripped through our community.
‘We have our bins collected only once in three weeks, the mobile library has gone, the roads are in a very bad state.
‘But millions is being spent on travellers. And they’re just causing mayhem.’
Debbie Adlam accused councillors who approved the revamp of showing ‘no respect’ towards her son’s memory.
She told them: ‘To open the site again, having had the history that it has, it just beggars belief that his whole life can be wiped out and we can just reopen it as if he didn’t exist.’
A member of PC Harper’s family said they remained firmly opposed to the traveller site being revamped and reopened.
‘We stand by what was said at the time. We oppose it. We’re against it,’ the relative said.
Another relative said the family remained ‘so proud of Andrew’, who was ‘such a lovely man’.
‘I miss him and think about him all the time. He was very special. I can’t believe it was that long ago already,’ the family member said.
Thames Valley Police – which referred to PC Harper’s killers as ‘murderers’ despite the trial verdicts – said its objection was ‘connected to the ongoing serious historic concerns with the policing of the site in the past and the use of police resources in investigating criminal offences at the site’.
It added: ‘This culminated in the murderers of PC Harper being associated with the site in 2019.’
Conservative councillor Graham Bridgman, a member of the planning committee, said the site had been a ‘hotbed of criminality’.
The site features 17 double-berth caravan pitches, ‘day buildings’ containing kitchens, bathrooms and living areas, two parking spaces each, provisions for electric car chargers and a children’s play area
PC Harper’s mother Debbie Adlam and Thames Valley Police were against revamping the traveller site at Four Houses Corner
But the revamp was approved by the Lib Dem-run council to meet ‘legal requirements’ for traveller accommodation, despite 47 objections in total.
PC Harper’s killers were sentenced at the Old Bailey in July 2020, with Henry Long, the 19-year-old ringleader, jailed for 16 years. Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, both 18, received 13-year terms.
The newlywed policeman – who had not yet been on honeymoon – had tried to stop three teenage boys from stealing a quad bike in Stanford Dingley, West Berkshire.
As he chased them, he unintentionally stepped into the loop of a tow-rope attached to the back of the criminals’ car.
As they sped off, it lassoed his feet and he was dragged along country lanes, swinging from side to side as almost all of his clothes were ripped from his body.
By the time he came free after 91 seconds, PC Harper’s body was almost naked and so severely battered that one of the people who found him initially thought he was a deer carcass.
Sentencing, Mr Justice Edis said the trio had taken the life of a ‘talented and brave young police officer who was going above and beyond his duty’.
The policeman’s widow Lissie Harper – who had only married him four weeks earlier – told the court: ‘They took more than one life away that day. They stole the person that I used to be, the happiness that we shared and the beautiful plans we had made together.’
A West Berkshire Council spokesperson said: ‘Any operational issues on the site are being managed directly with the residents.’
