This is the moment a British father, who had just shot his graduate daughter dead as she visited his Texas home, told police his gun ‘just went off’ as he picked it up.
‘Functioning alcoholic’ Kris Harrison claimed his fashion buyer daughter Lucy, 23, who was passionately anti-guns, had asked to see his Glock 9mm pistol, which he had not been trained to use.
Police in the US state failed to test him for alcohol despite smelling drink on his breath, and her death on January 10 last year was ruled accidental.
Saying ‘reckless’ Mr Harrison – who had drunk at least 500ml of wine that day – was a ‘teaser’, she ruled he had deliberately aimed it at his daughter’s chest, unaware it was loaded.
Now body-worn footage showing police officers speaking to her father minutes after the shooting has been released.
It shows Mr Harrison giving the account, which was today rejected by a coroner, as his daughter’s boyfriend, Sam Littler – who had called 911 – stands by in shock.
Lucy Harrison, 23, in a cherished image shared by her family which they framed and brought to court where it was on display during her inquest – it was taken at a Coldplay concert at the Etihad stadium in Manchester in 2023 which she attended with her mother
Lucy Harrison’s mother Jane Coates (centre) flanked by Lucy’s boyfriend Sam Littler and best friend Ella Gowing following her inquest at Cheshire Coroner’s Court on Wednesday
The interior of the house in Prosper, near Dallas, is covered in Christmas decorations, while the family had earlier been playing outside in the snow.
Dressed in a T-shirt, Mr Harrison tells the officer: ‘She was just about to go to the airport.’
‘Who is she?’ the officer interjects.
‘That’s our daughter, my daughter.
‘We were getting ready to go to the airport and talking about guns, she said “You got a gun?” I said “Yes.”
‘I got it out and it just went off as she stood there.
‘As I pulled it out, it went off. It must have been, obviously…’
The officer then asks if he put the pistol on the bed.
‘I put on the bed straight away,’ Mr Harrison replies.
Asked where he keeps it, he answers: ‘In the bedside cabinet… in a locked box.
‘We took it out to look, and just as I picked it up it went off.’
In bodycam footage captured as police arrived at the house, Mr Harrison insisted the gun ‘just went off’
Today a coroner in her hometown of Warrington, Cheshire concluded Lucy (pictured) had been unlawfully killed on the last day of her post-Christmas trip with her boyfriend
At an inquest into Lucy Harrison’s death, it emerged for the first time that she was fatally shot by her father Kris (pictured together)
A manslaughter investigation was launched in February after Lucy Harrison (pictured), 23, from Warrington, Cheshire, was killed at the house in Prosper, Texas, on January 10
On Tuesday, the inquest heard how Mr Harrison – an executive at a fibre optics company who had settled in Texas – had been drinking on the morning of the tragedy and had argued with his daughter about Donald Trump.
Mr Harrison, who did not attend the hearing, claimed in a statement that his daughter – described by a friend as ‘categorically anti-gun’ – had asked to see his pistol, which he had not been trained to use.
But rejecting his account, senior coroner Jacqueline Devonish said: ‘To shoot her through the chest whilst she was standing would have required him to have been pointing the gun at his daughter, without checking for bullets, and pulling the trigger.’
She added: ‘I accept he was a teaser, and on the balance of probabilities this is what he was doing.
‘I accept he did not realise the gun was loaded.’
The coroner said Mr Harrison had been ‘reckless’ to have bought a pistol without undergoing training on the safe use of firearms.
‘His actions have killed his own daughter and in the cold light of day it is hoped that he now recognises the risk he posed to her life in circumstances in which he had no experience of guns, had undertaken no training and had never fired a gun.’
Ms Devonish said he had failed to tell her boyfriend – who was on the phone to 911 – that he had shot Ms Harrison, despite knowing ‘full well he had shot his own daughter, pointing a gun at chest height and pulling the trigger’.
Lucy (pictured with her father) had been due to fly back to Manchester on the day she was shot after spending New Year in the States
‘Functioning alcoholic’ Kris Harrison claimed his fashion buyer daughter Lucy, 23, who was passionately anti-guns, had asked to see his Glock 9mm pistol, which he had not been trained to use
She also highlighted how police in Texas failed to test Mr Harrison for alcohol despite suspecting he had been drinking after smelling it on his breath.
Relatives of Ms Harrison wept as the coroner recorded her conclusion.
Speaking afterwards, flanked by her daughter’s ‘soulmate’ Mr Littler, her mother Jane Coates, said: ‘Texas gun laws did not keep Lucy safe from harm.’
And she said it was their ‘strongly held view that the US investigation led by the Prosper Police Department lacked the rigour and scrutiny you’d expect if this had happened in the UK.’
‘Lucy deserved better,’ she added.
Ms Coates, a deputy manager at a primary school, added: ‘I never imagined she would be shot and killed in the US, in a place where she should have been safe.’
Describing Texas gun laws were ‘so different to England’, Ms Harrison said firearms caused ‘too many deaths in the USA’.
Saying there was ‘much to be learnt from Lucy’s needless and entirely avoidable death’, her mother said she would not let ‘bitterness and hatred’ consume her.
‘Lucy had so much more of life to live, to love, to give.
‘She had a huge sense of right and wrong, and was not afraid to speak out if she saw any type of injustice.
‘Those who really know Lucy’s heart can hear her, loud and clear, and know exactly what she would want us to do moving forward.’
Ms Harrison regularly visited her father – who had married and started a new family in the US – after her parents split when she was a young child, the inquest heard on Tuesday.
But she had expressed concern about ‘volatility’ in the house, a friend said, adding that the presence of a gun created an ‘unpredictable environment’.
Ms Harrison felt it was unsafe for her father to have a firearm in the house with his young daughters around, the inquest heard.
Giving evidence, her boyfriend said she had argued with her father about Donald Trump on the morning of her death.
He ‘always felt on edge’ at the house, he added, saying: ‘There was a lot of very opinionated people in the house.’
As they prepared to set off for the airport, he said Mr Harrison took his daughter by the hand in a ‘mysterious’ manner without saying anything.
He then guided her into the downstairs bedroom where the gun was kept in a locked case.
Within 15 seconds, Mr Littler heard a ‘loud bang’ from the bedroom and found his girlfriend collapsed on the floor.
He insisted she would not have been interested in seeing her father’s gun.
Lucy (pictured) had been due to fly back to Manchester on the day she was shot after spending Christmas in the States
Giving evidence at the inquest, Lucy Harrison’s boyfriend Sam Littler (pictured, arriving at court) said she had argued with her father about Donald Trump on the morning of her death
In his own witness statement read to the court, Mr Harrison – who did not attend the inquest – claimed his daughter agreed to let him show her the weapon after they had watched a television news report about gun crime.
He said he bought the handgun as a ‘home defence’ weapon, meaning he did not need a licence as long as he did not take it out in public.
He had ‘no prior experience and no formal training’ around firearms, he said.
Mr Harrison suffered an ‘alcoholic seizure’ in 2023 which left him in an induced coma, the inquest was told.
He had drunk a 500ml carton of white wine that morning, but did not believe he was impaired by alcohol when his daughter was shot shortly before 3pm.
‘As I lifted the gun to show her, I suddenly heard a loud bang,’ he said in his statement.
‘Lucy immediately fell to the ground.’
In a statement read to the hearing, Officer Luciano Escalera, who was scrambled to the house, said he smelt ‘metabolised alcohol’ on Mr Harrison’s breath at which he initially lied, saying he hadn’t drunk alcohol since the day before.
But he then confessed to having drunk a ‘small’ carton of wine earlier in the day.
A ‘grand jury’ of 12 Texas residents later heard the evidence in private before deciding no-one should be prosecuted over Ms Harrison’s death.
