Lucy Harrison’s father was holding the gun that killed her but was never arrested. Now her mother wants Andy Burnham to take up the case | US gun control

L.Ucy Harrison thought 2024 was her best year yet. The 23-year-old had graduated from university at the top of her class, landed her dream job, and bought her first house with her boyfriend. Lucy used to say she was a “big girl adult” now. She cried tears of joy when she saw her idol Taylor Swift at Wembley that summer on her Eras tour. Life couldn’t get any better than this. “All the hard work, all the tears, everything was paying off“ said his mother, Jane Coates, from Warrington in north-west England.

That Christmas, Lucy and her boyfriend, Sam Littler, flew to Texas to spend time with her father, Kris Harrison, who left the family home when she was two. The couple had a complicated relationship — Harrison was a recovering alcoholic — and Littler, 24, didn’t want them to leave. But Lucy enjoyed seeing her two younger half-sisters at their home in Prosper, an affluent suburb 30 miles north of Dallas.

Lucy and Littler were due to fly to England on January 10, 2025, when there was a knock on Coates’ door. She was Littler’s mother. He said Lucy was shot. He was dead.

Only later did he learn that Kris Harrison had the gun. He was never arrested, and the grand jury chose not to indict him based on an investigation by local police.

Eighteen months later, Coates is calling on Andy Burnham’s government to encourage US authorities to reopen the case after the Cheshire coroner ruled that Lucy was unlawfully killed.

C.Deputy headteacher Oates raised Lucy as a single parent from the age of two. The couple had an incredibly close bond and talked about almost anything. As a child, before diving into the Harry Potter books, he was always outside exploring, climbing trees, riding his bike; it was a “comfort blanket” that he would turn over and over again as he grew into adulthood.

By the time she was nine, she was a devout Swiftie, performing a Taylor Swift song at a school leavers meeting and then going to three of her concerts. Anyone who knew Lucy knew her infectious laugh. “We call it Barbara Windsor’s belly laugh,” said Coates, 49.

Like many young adults, Lucy went through difficult times. Coates said that in his late teens, he struggled with the uncertainty of what he wanted to do with his life. He received counseling to help his relationship with his father.

But Lucy has never been happier than in 2024. She graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University with a degree in fashion buying and merchandising, started working at retailer Boohoo and bought a house with her “soulmate” Littler, five minutes away from both her mothers.

“Lucy’s senior year was the best year of her life,” Coates said. “He was very successful and really wanted the best for himself.”

He enjoyed life, good and bad. However, this sometimes meant that he would become upset about events that occurred thousands of miles away.

Coates remembers the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer as one such incident. “She would worry. She would overthink and cry a lot about different things. Sometimes it was out of frustration because she was so passionate about things.”

He was strongly opposed to guns, an issue that caused tension with his father. Harrison, a telecoms executive originally from Liverpool, moved to Saudi Arabia for work as a child, then settled in Texas, where he married education officer Heather Harrison and had two daughters.

Harrison had bought a gun from a colleague for $500 (£370) two years before Lucy’s death. In Texas, one of the most firearm-friendly states in the United States, gun owners over the age of 21 do not need training or licensing.

The inquest in Cheshire was told Lucy had expressed concerns to friends about her two younger siblings being at home with her father’s Glock 9mm semi-automatic pistol.

On the morning of his death, Lucy and her father discussed sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump, who was about to begin his second term as US president.

Littler said Lucy asked her father: “How would you feel if it was me and then the guy got away with it?”

Littler said Harrison “won’t bother me that much” because his two young daughters live with him. He added that Lucy “burst into tears and ran upstairs” and sent her father links to news articles about Trump allegations, which were denied by the US president.

Littler had been in a relationship with Lucy for five years by then and had known her since she was 12. “These were the kinds of things that happened on a regular basis,” Littler said. When she first met Harrison at Prosper a year ago, she told Lucy she didn’t want to go back. “You’ll feel like you’re on an eggshell.”

Coates emphasized that Lucy was not shot “because they were arguing about Trump.” Heated arguments between Lucy and her father were not uncommon: “There could be an argument about anything.”

Later that morning, the family was watching children’s television programs and preparing to leave for the airport when Harrison took Lucy’s hand and escorted her to her bedroom.

Harrison’s wife, Heather, looked at Littler in surprise and joked: “He would never hold my hand like that.”.” “It was mysterious,” Littler said. “Nobody knew what was going on.”

Then a loud explosion was heard. At first they thought it was a joke, then Harrison screamed for his wife. They ran into the room and saw Lucy on the floor. Harrison was in shock and couldn’t explain what happened. The gun was on the bed. He stammered: “I don’t know, I don’t know. Call an ambulance.”

Bodycam footage shows Harrison telling officers he showed his gun when he “fired” it at Lucy.

“When I took it out, it exploded,” he said.

D.Although an officer smelled alcohol on Harrison’s breath, he was not tested for alcohol. He initially denied drinking that day, but later told police he had a drinking problem and said he was “going on”; it was a confession that an officer took to mean that Harrison had been drinking throughout the day.

CCTV footage obtained by police showed Harrison buying two 500ml cartons of wine earlier that day and throwing one of them outside a shop. He later admitted that he had been drinking that morning.

According to a report submitted to the UK inquiry, a Texas ranger explained to Harrison during a police interview that “the gun would only fire if the trigger was pulled”. “Kris said ‘okay,'” he noted. However, authorities said they could not arrest Harrison because they could not prove his intentions.

Coates said he told a Texas ranger that Harrison must have pointed the gun at Lucy and pulled the trigger, to which he admitted, but claimed: “We can’t prove that.”

Coates said that in the same call in March 2025, prosecutors could not conclude that Harrison pointed the gun at Lucy because it “implied intent.” They said all they could tell him was that “the barrel was level with Lucy’s chest and the trigger was pulled.””.

The police case was turned over to a grand jury in Collin County, Texas, and the jury decided in June last year that Harrison should not be tried. His reasoning and the evidence he considered were not made public.

Littler was also taken to the police station. While he was waiting to find out whether Lucy had survived, he said he heard muffled conversation between officers who described the shooting as an “accident.”

“The police took Kris at his word,” Coates said. “The investigation was not rigorous and comprehensive enough.”

He suspects police would have taken Lucy’s death more seriously if it had occurred “in a less affluent white middle-class area”.

Of all the disturbing details they learned, the most painful for Coates was that Lucy’s body was tested for alcohol and other substances – all with negative results – and Harrison was not even tested for alcohol. “We find this absolutely incredible,” Coates said. He and Littler filed a formal complaint with the Prosper police department.

In February, Cheshire’s senior coroner Jacqueline Devonish ruled that firing a gun at Lucy from across the room was an act of gross negligence and her death could not be considered accidental.

Coates said the family was let down not only by Texas officials but also by the British government. They were told that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could not help them because no one had been prosecuted.

Sarah Hall, Labor MP for Warrington South, said the family did not have “sufficient support” and called on the government to pressure Texas authorities to re-examine the case.

Coates hopes the new prime minister, who represents the nearby Makerfield constituency, will take up Lucy’s cause in the US. He wants to meet the new foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, to discuss how the government can better support the families of those killed abroad.

“No one was with us in the beginning except Sarah Hall,” he said. “We have hope that the new cabinet and the foreign minister will support us. [but] “There were no officials who supported us as British citizens demanding justice for a British citizen murdered by a British citizen.”

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “Our thoughts are with Jane and her family at their tragic loss and we will always seek to learn lessons from such cases to improve the consular support we offer to other families in the future.”