Embedded Files
An Iranian mother spared the life of her son's convicted murderer with an emotional slap in the face as he awaited execution with the noose around his neck, a newspaper reported Thursday. The dramatic climax followed a rare public campaign to save the life of Balal, who at 19 killed another young man, Abdollah Hosseinzadeh, in a street fight with a knife back in 2007. (AFP)
An Iranian mother spared the life of her son's convicted murderer with an emotional slap in the face as he awaited execution with the noose around his neck, a newspaper reported Thursday. The dramatic climax followed a rare public campaign to save the life of Balal, who at 19 killed another young man, Abdollah Hosseinzadeh, in a street fight with a knife back in 2007. (AFP)
The initial notion for this webpage was born out viewing a 'news article' conveyed via the Yahoo news online service of an Iranian man convicted of murder about to receive his death sentence by hanging. My post was to the effect from the perspective of living in a country where the death penalty is a matter of history.
Then I checked it up and what I'd remembered was of the abolition date, and even at the time and certainly ever since I had blithely assumed that that was it a uniform date of implementation. That was far from the case and the Death Penalty this supreme matter of life & Death, became a frankly bizarre example of the chaotic political shambles that is the 'United Kingdom.'
I was initially going to simply call this page the Death Penalty, but this is a societal issue of what kind of society do we wish to live in, do we really want to return to one of state sponsored murder with an Officially Appointed Government Executioner?
Until I can locate a better source for this basic info I'll use Wickipedia. Starting from the basic starting point I'll highlight the timescale of Abolition to indicate the true effect.
(30 March 1905 – 10 July 1992)
was a long-serving hangman in England.
English: The poisoner en:Frederick Seddon being sentenced to death in 1912; the only known photograph of the death sentence being passed in an English court.
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom was used from the creation of the state in 1707 until the practice was abolished in the 20th century. The last executions in the United Kingdom were by hanging, and took place in 1964, prior to capital punishment being abolished for murder (in 1965 in Great Britain and in 1973 in Northern Ireland). Although not applied since, the death penalty was abolished in all circumstances in 1998. In 2004 the 13th Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights became binding on the United Kingdom, prohibiting the restoration of the death penalty for as long as the UK is a party to the Convention.[1]
Abolition
Abolition
Murder
Murder
In 1965 the Labour MP Sydney Silverman, who had committed himself to the cause of abolition for more than 20 years, introduced a private member's bill to suspend the death penalty, which was passed on a free votein the House of Commons by 200 votes to 98.
The bill was subsequently passed by the House of Lords by 204 votes to 104.[12][13]
The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 suspended the death penalty in England, Wales and Scotland (but not in Northern Ireland) for murder for a period of five years, and substituted a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment; it further provided that if, before the expiry of the five-year suspension, each House of Parliament passed a resolution to make the effect of the Act permanent, then it would become permanent.
In 1969 the Home Secretary, James Callaghan, proposed a motion to make the Act permanent, which was carried in the Commons on 16 December 1969,[14] and a similar motion was carried in the Lords on 18 December.[15]
The death penalty for murder was abolished in Northern Ireland on 25 July 1973 under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973.
Following the abolition of the death penalty for murder, the House of Commons held a vote during each subsequent parliament until 1997 to restore the death penalty.
This motion was always defeated, but the death penalty still remained for other crimes:
causing a fire or explosion in a naval dockyard, ship, magazine or warehouse (until 1971);
piracy with violence (until 1998);
certain purely military offences under the jurisdiction of the armed forces, such as mutiny[17] (until 1998). Prior to its complete abolition in 1998, it was available for six offences:
serious misconduct in action;
assisting the enemy;
obstructing operations;
giving false air signals;
mutiny or incitement to mutiny; and
failure to suppress a mutiny with intent to assist the enemy.
However no executions were carried out in the United Kingdom for any of these offences, after the abolition of the death penalty for murder.
Nevertheless, there remained a working gallows at HMP Wandsworth, London, until 1994, which was tested every six months until 1992. This gallows is now housed in the Galleries of Justice in Nottingham.[18]
Last executions
Last executions
England and in the United Kingdom: on 13 August 1964, Peter Anthony Allen, at Walton Prison in Liverpool, and Gwynne Owen Evans, at Strangeways Prison inManchester, were executed for the murder of John Alan West on 7 April that year.[19]
Scotland: Henry John Burnett, 21, on 15 August 1963 in Craiginches Prison, Aberdeen, for the murder of seaman Thomas Guyan.
Northern Ireland: Robert McGladdery, 25, on 20 December 1961 in Crumlin Road Gaol, Belfast, for the murder of Pearl Gamble.
Wales: Vivian Teed, 24, in Swansea on 6 May 1958, for the murder of William Williams, sub-postmaster of Fforestfach Post Office.[20]
Last death sentences
Last death sentences
Northern Ireland and in the United Kingdom: Liam Holden in 1973 in Northern Ireland, for the capital murder of a British soldier during the Troubles. Holden was removed from the death cell in May 1973.[21] In 2012 his conviction was quashed on appeal.[22]
England: David Chapman, who was sentenced to hang in November 1965 for the murder of a swimming pool nightwatchman in Scarborough. He was released from prison in 1979 and later died in a car accident.
Scotland: Patrick McCarron in 1964 for shooting his wife. He hanged himself in prison in 1970.
Wales: Edgar Black, who was reprieved on 6 November 1963. He had shot his wife's lover in Cardiff.
Final abolition
Final abolition
The Criminal Damage Act 1971 abolished the offence of arson in royal dockyards.
The Naval Discipline Act 1957 reduced the scope of capital espionage from "all spies for the enemy" to spies on naval ships or bases. 23] Later, the Armed Forces Act 1981 abolished the death penalty for espionage.[24] (The Official Secrets Act 1911 had created another offence of espionage which carried a maximum sentence of fourteen years.)
Beheading was abolished as a method of execution for treason in 1973.[25] However hanging remained available until 1998 when, under a House of Lords amendment to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, proposed by Lord Archer of Sandwell, the death penalty was abolished for treason and piracy with violence, replacing it with a discretionary maximum sentence of life imprisonment. These were the last civilian offences punishable by death.
On 20 May 1998 the House of Commons voted to ratify the 6th Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibiting capital punishment except "in time of war or imminent threat of war." The last remaining provisions for the death penalty under military jurisdiction (including in wartime) were removed when section 21(5) of the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force on 9 November 1998. On 10 October 2003, effective from 1 February 2004,[26] the UK acceded to the 13th Protocol, which prohibits the death penalty under all circumstances.[27]
As a legacy from colonial times, several states in the West Indies still had the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the court of final appeal; although the death penalty has been retained in these states, the Privy Council would sometimes delay or deny executions. Some of these states severed links with the British court system in 2001 by transferring the responsibilities of the Privy Council to the Caribbean Court of Justice, to speed up executions.[28]
Crown dependencies
Crown dependencies
Although not part of the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey are British Crown dependencies.
The Isle of Man formally abolished capital punishment in 1993.[1] The last person to be sentenced to death on the Isle of Man (and anywhere in the British Isles) was Anthony Robin Denys Teare, at the Court of General Gaol Delivery in Douglas, in 1992. The case was heard before the Second Deemster of the Isle of Man, Henry Callow. Deemster Callow thus became the last judge in the British Isles to pass a death sentence (but chose not to wear a black cap whilst doing so)
1829 Newspaper digest of the trial and execution of Philippe Jolin
1829 Newspaper digest of the trial and execution of Philippe Jolin
Until the 19th century, hangings were carried out on Westmount (French: Mont-Patibulaire (gallows hill); Jèrriais: Mont ès Pendus (hill of the hanged men)) in Saint Helier. The last such execution was carried out on 3 October 1829, when Phillipe Jolin was hanged for murder.The law specified hanging in public until 1907. The next execution, therefore, that of Joseph Philip Le Brun on 12 October 1875, also took place under the same conditions. It was the last public hanging in the British Isles (the United Kingdom had abolished public hangings in 1868). The death sentence passed on Thomas Connan (executed 19 February 1907) necessitated a law change to permit the hanging to take place within the prison walls. The last execution in Jersey was on 9 October 1959, when Francis Joseph Huchet was hanged for murder.[1] In Jersey, the last death sentence was passed in 1984 (commuted to life imprisonment)
Overseas territories
Overseas territories
Like the Crown dependencies, the British overseas territories are constitutionally not part of the United Kingdom. However, the British government's ultimate responsibility for good governance of the territories has led it over recent years to pursue a policy of revoking all statutory provision for the death penalty in those territories where it had up until recently been legal.
The last executions in an overseas territory, and indeed the last on British soil, took place in Bermuda in 1977, when two men, Larry Tacklyn and Erskine Burrows, were hanged for the 1973 murder of the territory's then Governor Sir Richard Sharples.[38]
In 1991, the British government extended an Order in Council to its Caribbean territories whose effect was to abolish capital punishment for murder: Anguilla, theBritish Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands.[39]
The British government was unable to extend the abolition via Order in Council to Bermuda, the UK's most autonomous overseas territory with powers of almost total self-governance—but warned that if voluntary abolition was not forthcoming it would be forced to consider the unprecedented step of "whether to impose abolition by means of an Act of Parliament".[40] As a result the Bermudian government introduced its own domestic legislation in 1999 to rectify the problem.[41]
Further measures have subsequently been adopted to revoke technicalities in British overseas territories' domestic legislation as regards use of the death penalty for crimes of treason and piracy. Since 2002, the death penalty has been outlawed under all circumstances in all the UK's overseas territories.[42]
Public support for reintroduction of capital punishment
Public support for reintroduction of capital punishment
Since the death penalty's abolition in 1965, there have been continued public and media calls for its reintroduction, particularly prompted by high-profile murder cases.
Since the death penalty's abolition in 1965, there have been continued public and media calls for its reintroduction, particularly prompted by high-profile murder cases.
Parliamentary debates on reintroduction
Parliamentary debates on reintroduction
After Royal Assent for the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965, supporters in Parliament have made several attempts to reintroduce capital punishment. November 1966, Duncan Sandys was refused leave to bring in a Bill to restore capital punishment for the murder of police or prison officers, by a vote of 170 to 292.[55]Motions to make the five year suspension of capital punishment under the 1965 Act permanent were opposed, but agreed by 343 to 185 in the House of Commons;[56] in the House of Lords, an amendment to continue with a temporary suspension of capital punishment until 31 July 1973 was rejected by 174 to 220.[57] The most recent Parliamentary debate on a question proposing reintroduction of capital punishment came on 21 February 1994 when new clauses to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Bill were moved. The first, providing for death as the sentence for "the murder of a police officer acting in the execution of his duty", was rejected by 186 to 383;[73] A new clause providing for general reintroduction with power for the Court of Appeal to substitute life imprisonment was rejected by 159 to 403.[74]In June 2013 a new bill for capital punishment in England and Wales was introduced. This Bill has been withdrawn and will not progress any further.[75]
Lord High Executioner
Harry Bernard Allen (5 November 1911 – 14 August 1992) was one of Britain's last official executioners, officiating between 1941 and 1964. He was chief executioner at 29 executions and acted as assistant executioner at 53 others at prisons in London, Manchester and Leeds. He was for 14 years an assistant executioner, mostly to Albert Pierrepoint from 1941 to 1955. In October 1955 he was appointed a Chief Executioner alongside Pierrepoint, although did not execute anyone as a 'Number One' until July 1957. Pierrepoint had resigned in February 1956.Allen's most controversial hanging came in April 1962, when James Hanratty was hanged for murder, despite efforts to clear his name. Allen also assisted in the execution of Derek Bentley in 1953, and he performed one of the last two executions in Britain, in 1964. {I mention Harry Hall in particular as Official Executioner as he was clearly the Last Official executioner until 1964, while Public Record has it that Albert Pierrepoint was The Last despite the undoubted fact that Albert resigned in February 1956. I myself believed the myth until now and regrettably many of the sources of material on this most invidious of Posts of Public Office still perpetuate the fable. Despite being not the actual Last Official Hangman I can't not mention Albert still probably the most well known of the lot.}
Albert Pierrepoint (30 March 1905 – 10 July 1992) was a long-serving hangman in England. He executed at least 400 people, including William Joyce (one of the men dubbed "Lord Haw-Haw"), and John Amery, whom he considered the bravest man he had ever hanged. He executed many people who had been convicted of war crimes.
Pierrepoint was often dubbed the Official Executioner, despite there being no such job or title. The office of executioner had traditionally been performed by the local sheriff, who increasingly delegated the task to a person of suitable character, employed and paid only when required. Pierrepoint continued to work for years in a grocery near Bradford after qualifying as an Assistant Executioner in 1932 and a Chief Executioner in 1941, in the steps of his father and uncle. Following his retirement in 1956, the Home Office acknowledged Pierrepoint as the most efficient executioner in British history. He subsequently became a publican in Lancashire and wrote his memoirs, in which he sensationally concluded that capital punishment was not a deterrent. There is no official tally of his hangings, which some have estimated at more than 600; the most commonly accepted figure is 435.
A Brit film from 2005 starring the peerless Timothy Spall as Albert, in all honesty I have yet to see this flic so I'll pass comment untill I do, though I'd like to be able to ruminate over others opinions. If nothing else it keeps the legend that is Albert alive I wonder if he got any of the films royalties. I have deliberately covered all of this to delineate the salient points at issue. When the death penalty was in effect I was fairly young and totally unaware of the ramifications behind the news headlines talked at me from radio and TV, in 1964 I was only 16 years of age. But that said its not yet in prehistoric times that hanging was the means of execution and the condemned was taken to the drop, folk songs make it appear an antique if not exactly ancient but it is in the living memory of a large enough proportion of the public for Tories to still think they can peddle the dangerous notion that appointing someone to commit state sanctioned murder is an acceptable solution to anything.
How Britain made its executioners
Public record office papers reveal Churchill's role in mystery of why Britain's chief executioner suddenly left his job A 90-year cover-up of why one of Britain's most famous hangmen suddenly left his job as chief executioner has finally been exposed.
Public record office papers reveal Churchill's role in mystery of why Britain's chief executioner suddenly left his job A 90-year cover-up of why one of Britain's most famous hangmen suddenly left his job as chief executioner has finally been exposed.
The release of confidential Home Office papers by the public record office this week shows that Henry Pierrepoint was struck off the official list of qualified executioners by Winston Churchill, home secretary in 1910, after he turned up drunk at Chelmsford prison to carry out a hanging and "brutally assaulted" his own assistant executioner. Pierrepoint's son, Albert, who went on to become the last executioner in Britain, always believed his father had not been sacked and others suggested he had resigned in anger at not being offered the job of hanging Dr Crippen.
Until the 19th century, hangings were carried out on Westmount (French: Mont-Patibulaire (gallows hill); Jèrriais: Mont ès Pendus (hill of the hanged men)) in Saint Helier. The last such execution was carried out on 3 October 1829, when Phillipe Jolin was hanged for murder.The law specified hanging in public until 1907. The next execution, therefore, that of Joseph Philip Le Brun on 12 October 1875, also took place under the same conditions. It was the last public hanging in the British Isles (the United Kingdom had abolished public hangings in 1868). The death sentence passed on Thomas Connan (executed 19 February 1907) necessitated a law change to permit the hanging to take place within the prison walls. The last execution in Jersey was on 9 October 1959, when Francis Joseph Huchet was hanged for murder.[1] In Jersey, the last death sentence was passed in 1984 (commuted to life imprisonment)
Maurice Welby, Britain’s most famous executioner, performed his final hanging on this day in 1954 at HMP Winson Green. Known as the ‘Laughing Hangman’ owing to his fondness for practical jokes, he soon became a national celebrity. The article from the Observer Magazine in 1998, shows the full extent of his fame…
Maurice Welby celebrated the appointment of his friend Harry Allen as Chief Executioner. Harry Allen can be seen centre frame in this photo. Click the link to read the whole article. Try this bit for size to see The Laughing Hangman as he was.For Maurice, an execution was a send-off. ‘Give ’em a good send off,’ he would say. His avowed intent was to make the experience as stress free as possible for the condemned man. 'It's just another day for me,' he reasoned, 'so why shouldn't it be the same for him?' First he would shake hands with the prisoner. This would administer a jolt from the novelty ‘buzzer’ in his right palm. Then he would follow up with the squirting flower. As the fellow rubbed his eyes, the hood would go on and his hands would be secured. Seconds later he would be through the trapdoor in the adjoining room with the sound of laughter still ringing in his ears. - To top it off with a pint with his mates in the local for a cheery laugh at the poor sods expense, what an unremitting total and utter BASTARD
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