UK death penalty help!?

** The last executions by hanging

took place in 1964, prior to capital punishment being abolished for murder in 1969. Although not applied since, it remained on the statute book for certain other offences until 1998.

After abolition of the death penalty for murder in 1965, die-hards began a tradition requiring the Commons to hold a free vote on a motion during each Parliament proposing the restoration of capital punishment. This motion was always defeated. However, the death penalty still survived for other crimes:

causing a fire or explosion in a naval dockyard, ship, magazine or warehouse (until 1971);

espionage[5] (until 1981);

piracy with violence (until 1998),

treason (until 1998), and

certain purely military offences under the jurisdiction of the armed forces, such as mutiny[6] (until 1998). Prior to its complete abolition in 1998, it was available for six offences: 1) serious misconduct in action, 2) assisting the enemy, 3) obstructing operations, 4) giving false air signals, 5) mutiny or incitement to mutiny, and 6) failure to suppress a mutiny with intent to assist the enemy.

However, no more executions were carried out.

*** Last executions

England and in the United Kingdom: on 13 August 1964 at 9 a.m., Peter Anthony Allen, at Walton Prison in Liverpool, and Gwynne Owen Evans, at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, were executed for the murder of John Alan West on 7 April that year.[7]. The last woman to be executed in England was Ruth Ellis, on 13 July 1955.

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 murder.

In the Channel Islands, the last death sentence was passed in 1984; the last execution in the Channel Islands was in Jersey on 9 October 1959, when Francis Joseph Hutchet was hanged for murder

The last execution on the Isle of Man took place in 1872, when John Kewish was hanged for patricide. Capital punishment was not formally abolished by Tynwald (the island's parliament) until 1993

*** Last death sentences

United Kingdom: William 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.

England: David Chapman, who was sentenced to hang in November 1965 for the murder of a swimming-pool night-watchman 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.

*** The Criminal Damage Act 1971 abolished the offence of arson in royal dockyards

*** 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[9] the UK acceded to the 13th Protocol, which prohibits the death penalty under all circumstances,[10] so that the UK may no longer legislate to restore the death penalty while it is subject to the Convention. It can only now restore it if it withdraws from the Council of Europe.

we don't have the death penalty here in the uk, I personally have no feelings one way or the other, but concidering the various ways we have dispatched our criminals it is probably better we don't although it is still on our staute books. by that I mean there is still one crime for which it is possible to be given the death penalty and that is treason. we still have a working gallows at wandsworth prison, which are tested every day in the event that they would be needed. the method that we would use would be hanging!! we dont have the electric chair or lethal injection or the gas chamber, we have in the past had some quite grusome ways of killing off our criminals, such as burning at the stake, beheading, and hanging drawing and quartering, there have been other ways such as the iron maiden. the general thought these days is that there is no reprieve from being dead and some of hose executed have been found to be innocent many years after the execution, the problem is where do yuou draw the line, if you are going to have the death penalty then you have to accept that mistakes happen and that sometimes the wrong people are killed. Dave

After 20 years of campaigning Labour Mp Sydney Silverman, successfully introduced a Private Members Bill which was past on a free vote, for the abolition of the death penalty, which was, initially suspended for a term of five years and substituded with with the mandatory life sentence, though by 1969, then Home Secretary James Callahan, made a notion for the act to made permanent, which was carried on December 18th that same year.

Although up until 1998 a person could still be hanged for Treason and Piracy With Violence, which was abolished that year.

The last people to hanged were Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans at 9 a.m. 13th August 1964, for the murder of pc John West [although the last woman to be hanged was Ruth Ellis in 1955]

In 1962 James Hanratty was hanged for rape and murder charges, in a very controversial case, in which it was claimed he was innocent, however in 2002 his body was exumed and DNA was matched to the crime scene and the court upheld the sentence.

The most notable hanging was that of William Wallace whom was hung, drawn and quatered for High Treason To The Crown.

Hope this helps a little.

Ruth Ellis was the last woman to hang, for a crime of passion as with Bentley's hanging (an epileptic with a mental age of 11) there was a public outcry and heralded the end of this punishment, which could only be implemented if weapons were used, the death penalty stood for many years after for treason, high treason, arson in her majesties shipyards, and sex with the partner of the reining monarch or the heir apparent.

Tony Teare was was sentenced to hang on the I O Man had a retrial granted on the 16/11/93.

The Court of Appeal was told that Derek Bentley, the teenager hanged for murdering a policeman 45 years ago, had been convicted on "highly suspect" evidence.

Edward Fitzgerald QC, counsel for Bentley's family, said his trial in 1952 was "grossly unfair". His execution was "nothing short of cruel given his mental age, mental defects and epilepsy".

The jury at the time made a plea for mercy, which was ignored.

'Little choice but to convict'

Mr Fitzgerald said the trial judge had acted with "blatant prejudice" and misdirected the jury in such a way that "this conviction simply cannot stand".

He said the trial judge, Lord Chief Justice Goddard, "poured scorn on the defence and the defendant, extolled the virtues of the police officers and left the jury with little choice but to do what he presented to them as their duty, and convict".

The case always turned on the famous phrase he allegedly uttered shortly before his accomplice shot dead a policeman: "Let him have it."

The Crown alleged at Bentley's trial in 1952 that the crucial words were those of an angry young man urging his accomplice, Christopher Craig to shoot.

Mr Fitzgerald told the court that there was the "gravest doubt" as to whether those words were ever spoken and there was "good reason to doubt the veracity" of the officers involved in the case.

Bentley and Craig always denied that he had said those words.

The same words were used to convict another man, Appleby, in the shooting of a policeman 10 years earlier.

"It is too striking a coincidence that Bentley, a 19-year-old of very limited intelligence, should use precisely the same words," Mr Fitzgerald said.

The BBC's Jane Peel: "New evidence suggests Bentley had a mental age of about 10"

Derek Bentley was mentally handicapped - a fact that never emerged at the trial.

"Had this evidence been available at trial," Mr Fitzgerald said, "it would have cast doubt on some of the assumptions invited".

Far from being homicidal, Mr Fitzgerald said Derek Bentley had shown "complete co-operation" with the police from the time of his capture.

He had not tried to escape and had warned the officers that Craig was dangerous.

Craig ready to testify

Mr Fitzgerald said that Christopher Craig, now 61 and a retired farmer is prepared to give his account of what happened and invited the Court of Appeal judges to call him.

Craig, shot the policeman when he was 16, but was too young to hang and served 10 years in prison.

Bentley's sister Iris mounted a lifelong campaign to quash Bentley's conviction after he was executed at Wandsworth Prison in January 1953.

In 1993 a limited posthumous pardon was granted, accepting Bentley should not have been hanged, although maintaining his guilt.

In November last year the Criminal Cases Review Commission announced the case would be sent back for The Court of Appeal to reconsider.

Iris Bentley's daughter, Maria Bentley-Dingwall, took over the campaign to win a full pardon

James Hanratty was the eighth from last man to be hung and there was a lot of talk that he was innocent.There was much public outcry to his hanging coming not long after Timothy Evans a simple man from Merthyr Vale in Wales was hung for the murder of his wife.Evans was innocent and it was later found that Reginald Christie his landlord was the killer.A film was made about this case called 10 Rillington Place starring Richard Attenborough.The last persons to be hung in Britain were Peter Allen and John Walby (alias Gwynne Owen Evans) who were hung simultainously on Aug 13th 1964

"Capital punishment was used in the United Kingdom and its predecessor states of England and Scotland from the earliest times until the punishment was abolished in the 20th century. The last executions, by hanging, took place in 1964, prior to capital punishment being abolished for murder in 1969. Although not applied since, it remained on the statute book for certain other offences until 1998."

The last executions in Britain were of two men on 13 August 1964. Peter Anthony Allen, aged 21, was hanged in Walton gaol, Liverpool and Gwynne Owen Evans, aged 24, was hanged in Strangeways, Manchester. They were both convicted of the murder of John Alan West, while robbing him in his house on 7 April 1964

http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/capital_hist.ht...

The UK Death Sonance is Limited. it more Saver for thief's than killer

use a letter of Edition flip. It how I got a 14 year old off death row.

okay i did the same kind of thing.

I asked a yahoo question on people's views about it...

some people also gave information so you can look at that if you want