Capital punishment in the United Kingdom
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'''[[Capital punishment]] in the [[United Kingdom]]''' was abolished for murder in 1965. Although never applied, it remained on the statute book for certain other offences until 1998. The last executions took place in 1964, by hanging.
==Origins in English law==
[[Hanging]] by the neck until dead as form of [[capital punishment]] was introduced to [[England]] by the [[Anglo-Saxons|Anglo-Saxon]] invaders of the [[5th century]].{{Fact|date=June 2008}} By the [[10th century]] it had become a common method of execution. [[William I of England]] decreed that hanging should only be used for conspirators or in times of war and ordered that criminals should instead be blinded and emasculated.{{Fact|date=June 2008}} [[Waltheof II, Earl of Northumbria]] was the only lord to be formally executed during his reign. [[William II of England|William Rufus]] re-introduced hanging but only for those found guilty of poaching royal deer. He too is known to have executed only a single aristocrat, [[William of Aldrie]]. [[Henry I of England|Henry I]] brought hanging back as the main means of execution for many crimes. [[William Fitz Osbern (1196)|William Fitz Osbern]] was the first recorded execution at [[Tyburn, London|Tyburn]] in [[1196]]. The hanging tree (near present-day [[Speakers' Corner]] in [[Hyde Park, London|Hyde Park]]) became notorious.
Under the reign of [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]] some 72,000 people are estimated to have been executed by various methods including [[boiling to death|boiling]], [[Execution by burning|burning at the stake]], [[decapitation]] and hanging, sometimes with the added punishment of [[Hanged, drawn and quartered|drawing and quartering]] while still alive.
Sir [[Samuel Romilly]] speaking to the [[British House of Commons|House of Commons]] on capital punishment in 1810, declared that "…[there is] no country on the face of the earth in which there [have] been so many different offences according to law to be punished with death as in [[England]]." Known as the "[[Bloody Code]]", at its height the criminal law included some 220 different crimes punishable by death. These crimes included such offences as "being in the company of Gypsies for one month", "strong evidence of malice in a child aged 7–14 years of age" and "blacking the face or using a disguise whilst committing a crime". Many of these offences had been introduced to protect the property of the wealthy classes that emerged during the first half of the eighteenth century; a notable example being the [[Black Act]] of 1723 which created fifty capital offences for various acts of theft and poaching.
Whilst executions for [[murder]], [[burglary]] and [[robbery]] were common, the death sentences of minor offenders were often not carried out. However, children were commonly executed for such minor crimes as stealing. A sentence of death could be commuted or respited (permanently postponed) for reasons such as [[benefit of clergy]], official pardons, pregnancy of the offender or performance of military or naval duty<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/history/crime/punishment.html#death|title=Punishments at the Old Bailey--Late 17th Century to Early 19th Century|date=2003|publisher=The Old Bailey Proceedings Online|accessdate=2007-03-13}}</ref> Between [[1770]] and [[1830]], 35,000 death sentences were handed down in England and Wales, but only 7,000 executions were carried out.<ref>Gatrell, V. A. C., ''The Hanging Tree'', OUP, Oxford, 1994</ref>
==Reform==
In [[1808]] Romilly had the death penalty removed for pickpockets and lesser offenders, starting a process of reform that continued over the next 50 years. Since the death penalty was mandatory (although it was frequently [[pardon|commuted]] by the government), the [[Judgement of Death Act 1823]] gave judges the power to commute the death penalty for all capital crimes except [[treason]] and [[murder]]. The Punishment of Death, etc. Act 1832 reduced the number of capital crimes by two-thirds. [[Gibbet]]ing was abolished in 1832 and hanging in chains was abolished in 1834. In 1861, several acts of Parliament (24 & 25 Vict; c. 94 to c. 100) further reduced the number of civilian capital crimes to five: [[Murder in English law|murder]], [[High treason in the United Kingdom|treason]], [[espionage]], [[arson in royal dockyards]], and [[Piracy Act 1837|piracy with violence]]; there were other offences under [[military law]]. The death penalty remained [[mandatory sentencing|mandatory]] for treason and murder, unless [[pardon|commuted]].
The [[Royal Commission]] on Capital Punishment ([[1864]]–[[1866|66]]) concluded (with one dissenter) that there was not a case for abolition but did recommend an end to public executions and this proposal was included in the Capital Punishment (Amendment) Act 1868. From then executions on the island of Great Britain were carried out in prison. The practice of beheading and quartering executed traitors was stopped in 1870.
In 1885 [[John 'Babbacombe' Lee]] was convicted of murder and sentenced to hang though he maintained that he was innocent. On [[February 23]] at Exeter prison, three attempts were made to carry out his execution, all of which failed (because when the gallows had been reassembled in the new shed the draw bar was misaligned by one eighth of an inch; thus one of the hinges of the trap caught on the bar and failed to drop - see Home Office documents on the affair). As a result, Home Secretary Sir [[William Vernon Harcourt (politician)|William Harcourt]] commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Lee continued to petition successive Home Secretaries and was finally released from gaol in 1907, having become notorious as ''the man they couldn't hang''.
Juveniles under 16 could no longer be executed from [[1908]] with the [[Children Act 1908|Children's Charter]]. In [[1922]] a new offence of [[Infanticide Act|Infanticide]] was introduced to replace the charge of murder for mothers killing their children in the first year of life. In 1930 a parliamentary [[Select Committee (Westminster System)|Select Committee]] recommended that capital punishment be suspended for a trial period of five years, but no action was taken. From 1931 pregnant women could no longer be hanged (following the birth of their child), and in [[1933]] the minimum age for capital punishment was raised to 18 with the [[Children and Young Persons Act 1933]]. The last known execution of a person under 18 years of age was that of Charles Dobel, 17, hanged at [[Maidstone]] together with his accomplice William Gower, 18, in January [[1889]].
In 1938 the issue of the abolition of capital punishment was brought before parliament. A clause within the Criminal Justice Bill called for an experimental five-year suspension of the death penalty. When war broke out in 1939 the bill was postponed. It was revived after the war and to everyone's surprise was adopted by a majority in the House of Commons (245 in favour to 222 against). In the [[House of Lords]] the abolition clause was defeated but the remainder of the bill was passed. Popular support for abolition was absent and the government decided that it would be inappropriate for it to assert its supremacy by invoking the [[Parliament Acts]] over such an unpopular issue.
Instead, the [[Home Secretary]], [[James Chuter Ede]], set up a new royal commission (the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, 1949–1953) with instructions to determine "whether the liability to suffer capital punishment should be limited or modified". The Commission's report discussed a number of alternatives to execution by hanging (including the US methods of electrocution and gassing, and the then-theoretical lethal injection), but rejected them. It had more difficulty with the principle of capital punishment. Popular opinion believed that the death penalty acted as a deterrent to criminals, but the statistics within the report were inconclusive on this issue. Whilst the report recommended abolition from an ethical standpoint, it made no mention of possible miscarriages of justice. It concluded that unless there was overwhelming public support in favour of abolition, the death penalty should be retained.
Between 1900 and 1949, 621 men and 11 women were executed in England and Wales. Thirteen [[Nazi Germany|German]] agents were executed during the Second World War. The [[Treachery Act 1940]] was the only law in the twentieth century to create a new capital offence in civilian law.
By 1957 a number of controversial cases had highlighted the issue of capital punishment once again. Campaigners for abolition were partially rewarded with the [[Homicide Act 1957]]. The Act brought in a distinction between capital and non-capital homicide. Only six categories of murder were now punishable by execution. They were:
* Murder in the course or furtherance of theft
* Murder by shooting or causing an explosion
* Murder while resisting arrest or during an escape
* Murder of a police officer
* Murder of a prison officer by a prisoner
* The second of two murders committed on different occasions (if both done in [[Great Britain]]).
The police and the government were of the opinion that the death penalty deterred offenders from carrying firearms and it was for this reason that such offences remained punishable by death.
==Abolition==<!-- This section is linked from [[Enoch Powell]] -->
===Murder===
In 1965 the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] MP [[Sydney Silverman]], who had committed himself to the cause of abolition for more than 20 years, introduced a [[Private Member's Bill|private member's bill]], which was passed on a free vote in the House of Commons by 200 votes to 98. (A [[Conscience vote|free vote]], traditional for issues of conscience such as abortion and capital punishment, is one in which the political parties do not direct MPs how to vote.) The bill was subsequently passed by the House of Lords by 204 votes to 104.
The [[Murder (Abolition of the Death Penalty) Act 1965]] suspended the death penalty in [[England]], [[Wales]] and [[Scotland]] (but not [[Northern Ireland]]) for murder for a period of five years, and substituted a [[mandatory sentencing|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 [[18 December]] [[1969]], and a similar motion was carried in the Lords in the same month. The death penalty for murder was abolished in Northern Ireland under the [[Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973]].
After abolition of the death penalty for murder, 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, namely:
# [[arson in royal dockyards|causing a fire or explosion in a naval dockyard, ship, magazine or warehouse]] (until [[Criminal damage in English law|1971]]);
# [[espionage]]<ref>Naval Discipline Act 1957, section 93; previously Naval Discipline Act (1866),<!-- Do not remove brackets as the year 1866 was not included in the official short title --> section 6.</ref> (until 1981);
# [[Piracy Act 1837|piracy with violence]] (until [[Crime and Disorder Act 1998|1998]]),
# [[high treason in the United Kingdom|treason]] (until [[Crime and Disorder Act 1998|1998]]), and
# certain purely military offences under the jurisdiction of the [[British Armed Forces|armed forces]], such as [[mutiny]]<ref>[http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Legislation&Year=1955&searchEnacted=0&extentMatchOnly=0&confersPower=0&blanketAmendment=0&sortAlpha=0&TYPE=QS&PageNumber=1&NavFrom=0&activeTextDocId=2675342&parentActiveTextDocId=2675303&showAllAttributes=1&hideCommentary=0&suppressWarning=0&versionNumber=1 Statutelaw.gov.uk]</ref> (until [[Human Rights Act 1998|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 under UK law.
===Last executions===
On [[13 August]] [[1964]] at 9 a.m. [[Peter Anthony Allen]], at Walton Prison in [[Liverpool]], and [[Gwynne Owen Evans]], at [[Manchester (HM Prison)|Strangeways Prison]] in [[Manchester]], were each executed for the murder of [[John Alan West]] on [[7 April]] that year.<ref>[http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/last_ones.htm Last executions in the UK]</ref> These were the last executions in England and in the United Kingdom.
The last execution in Scotland was of 21 year old [[Henry John Burnett]] on [[15 August]] [[1963]] in [[HMP Aberdeen|Craiginches Prison]], [[Aberdeen]], for the murder of seaman Thomas Guyan.
The last execution in Northern Ireland was of [[Robert McGladdery]], 25, on [[20 December]] [[1961]] in [[Crumlin Road (HM Prison)|Crumlin Road Gaol]], Belfast, for the murder of Pearl Gamble.
The last execution to take place in Wales was of murderer Vivian Teed, hanged in [[Swansea]] on [[6 May]] 1958.
The last woman to be executed in the UK was [[Ruth Ellis]] on [[13 July]] [[1955]].
===Last death sentences===
The last person to be sentenced to death in the United Kingdom was 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.
The last person sentenced to death in England was David Chapman, who was sentenced to hang in November 1965 for the capital murder of a swimming-pool night-watchman in [[Scarborough, North Yorkshire|Scarborough]]. He was released from prison in 1979 and later died in a car accident.
The last person to be sentenced to death in Scotland was Patrick McCarron in 1964 for fatally shooting his wife. He hanged himself in prison in 1970.
The last person to be sentenced to death in Wales was Edgar Black, who was reprieved on [[6 November]] [[1963]]. He had fatally shot his wife's lover in [[Cardiff]].
===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.<ref>Naval Discipline Act 1957, section 93.[http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Legislation&title=Naval+Discipline+Act&searchEnacted=0&extentMatchOnly=0&confersPower=0&blanketAmendment=0&sortAlpha=0&TYPE=QS&PageNumber=1&NavFrom=0&parentActiveTextDocId=1292014&ActiveTextDocId=1292225&filesize=2764]</ref> Later, the Armed Forces Act 1981 abolished the death penalty for espionage.[http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?LegType=All+Legislation&Year=1981&searchEnacted=0&extentMatchOnly=0&confersPower=0&blanketAmendment=0&sortAlpha=0&TYPE=QS&PageNumber=1&NavFrom=0&parentActiveTextDocId=1358702&ActiveTextDocId=1358726&filesize=597] (In 1911 the [[Official Secrets Act]] had created another offence of espionage which carried a maximum sentence of fourteen years.)
Under a House of Lords amendment to the [[Crime and Disorder Act 1998]], proposed by [[Peter Archer, Baron Archer of Sandwell|Lord Archer of Sandwell]], the death penalty was abolished for [[Treason Act 1814|treason]] and [[Piracy Act 1837|piracy with violence]], replacing it with a discretionary maximum sentence of life imprisonment. These were the last civilian offences punishable with 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]]. The UK later ([[10 October]] [[2003]]; effective from [[1 February]] [[2004]]<ref>[http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2004/20041574.htm Human Rights Act 1998 (Amendment) Order 2004]</ref>) acceded to the 13th Protocol, which prohibits the death penalty under all circumstances,<ref>[http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/en/Treaties/Html/187.htm 13th Protocol]</ref> so that the UK may no longer legislate to restore the death penalty while it is subject to the Convention.
As a legacy from colonial times, several islands in the [[Caribbean|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 islands, the Privy Council would sometimes delay or deny executions. Some of these islands severed links with the British court system in 2001 in order to speed up executions.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,438341,00.html|title=Caribbean severs link to privy council|first=Owen|last=Bowcott|date=2001|publisher=The Guardian|accessdate=2007-03-13}}</ref>
===Crown dependencies===
{{further|[[Capital punishment in the Isle of Man]]}}
Although not part of the United Kingdom, the [[Isle of Man]] and the bailiwicks of [[Guernsey]] and [[Jersey]] are British [[Crown dependency|Crown dependencies]].
In the Channel Islands, the last death sentence was passed in [[1984]]; however, the last execution in the Channel Islands was in Jersey on [[9 October]] [[1959]], when Francis Joseph Hutchet was hanged for murder.<ref>[http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/islands.html http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/islands.html]</ref> The ''Human Rights (Amendment) (Jersey) Order 2006''<ref>[http://www.jerseylegalinfo.je/Law/lawsinforce/htm/ROFiles/R&OYear2006/R&O-115-2006.pdf Human Rights (Amendment) (Jersey) Order 2006]</ref> amends the ''Human Rights (Jersey) Law 2000''<ref>[http://www.jerseylegalinfo.je/law/lawsinforce/consolidated/15/15.350_HumanRightsLaw2000_RevisedEdition_1January2007.pdf Human Rights (Jersey) Law 2000]</ref> to give effect to the 13th Protocol of the [[European Convention on Human Rights]] providing for the total abolition of the death penalty. Both of these laws came into effect on [[10 December]] [[2006]]. The 13th Protocol was extended to Guernsey in April [[2004]].<ref>[http://www.gov.gg/ccm/cms-service/stream/asset/?asset_id=4489012 Report by the Bailiwick of Guernsey] (page 5)</ref>
The last execution on the Isle of Man took place in [[1872]]. Nevertheless, capital punishment was not formally abolished by [[Tynwald]] (the island's parliament) until [[1993]].<ref>[http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/e7722d243d1c0d89802565400061a903?Opendocument UN Human Rights report] para. 46</ref> Five persons were sentenced to death (for murder) on the Isle of Man between 1973 and 1992, although all sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. The last person to be sentenced to death in the UK or its dependancies was Anthony Teare, who was convicted at the Manx [[Isle of Man High Court#Court of General Gaol Delivery|Court of General Gaol Delivery]] in [[Douglas, Isle of Man|Douglas]] in [[1992]]; he was subsequently retried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1994.<ref>[http://firedrake.org/drpete/manx2.htm http://firedrake.org/drpete/manx2.htm]</ref> In 2004 the 13th Protocol was adopted,<ref>[http://www.gov.im/lib/docs/cso/hraprotocol13order2004.pdf Human Rights Act 2001 (13th Protocol) Order 2004]</ref> with an effective date of [[1 November]] [[2006]].<ref>[http://www.gov.im/lib/docs/cso/humanrightsact2001appointedday1.pdf Human Rights Act 2001 (Appointed Day) (No. 2) Order 2006]</ref>
== Notable executions ==
''Note: This list does not include the beheadings of nobility.''
*1305: [[William Wallace]], Scottish resistance fighter, was [[hanged, drawn and quartered]] for [[treason]] against English crown.
*1499: [[Perkin Warbeck]], [[pretender]] to the throne, was hanged at [[Tyburn, London|Tyburn]].
*1606: On [[31 January]] the [[Gunpowder Plot]]ters of 1605 were [[hanged, drawn and quartered]].
*1612: [[Edward Wightman]] became the last person in England to be burnt at the stake for [[heresy]], at [[Lichfield]].
*1660: At the [[English Restoration]] [[List of regicides of Charles I|nine regicides]] were hanged, drawn and quartered for their part in the death of King Charles I. Also [[John Bradshaw (judge)|John Bradshaw]], [[Oliver Cromwell]], and [[Henry Ireton]] were [[Posthumous execution|posthumously executed]]: disinterred from [[Westminster Abbey]] and hanged, drawn, and quartered.
*1681: [[Oliver Plunkett]] was [[hanged, drawn and quartered]] at [[Tyburn, London|Tyburn]] on [[July 1]] [[1681]], becoming the last Catholic [[martyr]] to die in England.
*1684: [[Bideford witch trial|Temperance Lloyd, Mary Trembles and Susanna Edwards]] became the last people to be hanged for [[witchcraft]] in Britain.
*1708: Michael Hammond, aged 7, and his sister, aged 11, were reputedly hanged at Lynn for [[felony]]. If true, Michael would have been the youngest person ever to suffer the death penalty in Britain.{{Fact|date=February 2008}}
*1724: [[Jack Sheppard]], house-breaker, was hanged at Tyburn for burglary on [[16 November]] after four successful escape attempts from jail. His partner-in-crime, highwayman [[Joseph Blake (criminal)|Joseph "Blueskin" Blake]], was similarly executed for the same burglary five days earlier.
*1725: [[Jonathan Wild]], criminal overlord and fraudulent "Thief Taker General", was hanged at Tyburn on [[May 24]] (over six months after Jack Sheppard's and Blueskin's executions) for receiving stolen good and thus actually aiding criminals.
*1739: [[Dick Turpin]], highwayman, was hanged.
*1746: Nine Catholic members of the Manchester Regiment, Jacobites, were hanged, drawn and quartered for treason on Wednesday [[July 30]], [[1746]] at Kennington Common (now [[Kennington Park]]).
*1750: [[James MacLaine]], 'The Gentleman Highwayman', was hanged at [[Tyburn, London]]
*1757: [[John Byng]] became the only British admiral ever executed (by firing squad) by the [[Royal Navy]]. His crime was to have failed to "do his utmost" during the [[Battle of Minorca]].
*1760: [[Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers]] was executed at Tyburn on [[5 May]] for the murder of a servant. He is the only [[peerage|peer]] to have been hanged for murder.
*1789: [[Catherine Murphy (counterfeiter)|Catherine Murphy]] was the last woman to be burned to death (legally) in England. The penalty was abolished the next year.
*1820: Andrew Hardie and [[John Baird (revolutionary)|John Baird]] were hanged and beheaded at Stirling after being tried for their part in the [[Radical War]] in Scotland.
*1828: William Corder was hanged at [[Bury St Edmunds]] on [[August 11]] for [[Red Barn Murder|the murder of Maria Marten at the Red Barn]] a year before.
*1861: [[Martin Doyle]] became the last person to be hanged for attempted murder at Chester on the [[27 August]].
*1868: Frances Kidder became the last woman to be hanged in public on [[2 April]].
*1868: [[Michael Barrett (Fenian)|Michael Barrett]] was executed on [[26 May]] at [[Newgate Prison]] for the [[Fenian]] bombing at Clerkenwell, the last public hanging in Britain.
*1910: [[Hawley Harvey Crippen]] was hanged on [[23 November]] in London's Pentonville Prison for the murder of his wife.
*1914: Private [[Thomas Highgate]] was executed by firing squad on [[8 September]], the first British soldier to be executed for [[desertion]] during the [[World War I]].
*1916: [[Roger Casement]] was hanged at Pentonville on [[3 August]] for treason as one of the 7 leaders of the failed Irish [[Easter Rising]].
*1920: Private James Daly of the [[Connaught Rangers]] was [[Connaught Rangers#Mutiny in India, 1920|shot for mutiny]] on [[2 November]] in India, the last member of the British Armed Forces to be executed for [[mutiny]].
*1923: [[Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters]] were hanged simultaneously on [[9 January]] in London's Holloway and Pentonville Prisons respectively. The case was controversial because Thompson did not directly participate in the murder for which she was hanged.
*1941: [[Josef Jakobs]] was executed by firing-squad on [[15 August]], the last execution in the Tower of London.
*1946: [[William Joyce]], better known as "[[Lord Haw-Haw]]", was hanged for treason on [[3 January]] in London's Wandsworth Prison. He was actually an American citizen, not British, but was convicted of treason because, as the holder of a British passport (albeit one fraudulently obtained), he was held to have owed allegiance to the British sovereign. [[Theodore Schurch]], hanged for treachery the next day, was the last person to be executed for an offence other than murder; he was executed at Pentonville. As a member of the armed forces he had been tried by [[court-martial]].
*1947: [[Walter Rowland]] was hanged in Manchester on [[27 February]] for the murder of Olive Balchin despite maintaining his innocence. While he had been awaiting execution, another man confessed to the crime.{{Fact|date=February 2008}} A Home Office report dismissed the latter's confession as a fake, but in 1951 he attacked another woman and was found guilty but insane.{{Fact|date=February 2008}}
*1949: [[Margaret Allen]], aged 43, was hanged on [[12 January]] for killing a 70-year-old woman in the course of a robbery, the first woman to be hanged in Britain for 12 years.
*1949: [[John George Haigh]], the "acid-bath murderer", was executed at [[Wandsworth]] on [[10 August]].
*1950: [[Timothy Evans]] was hanged on [[9 March]] at Pentonville for the murder of his baby daughter Geraldine at 10 Rillington Place, north-west London. He had also initially claimed to have killed his wife, but later withdrew the claim. A fellow inhabitant at the same address, [[John Reginald Halliday Christie|John Christie]], later found to be a sexual [[serial killer]], gave key evidence against Evans. Christie was executed in 1953 for the murder of his own wife. Evans received a posthumous pardon in 1966. In 2004 the [[Court of Appeal of England and Wales|Court of Appeal]] refused to consider overturning the conviction due to the costs and resources that would be involved. See [[10 Rillington Place]].
*1950: George Kelly was hanged at Liverpool on [[28 March]] for murder, but had his conviction quashed posthumously by the Court of Appeal in June 2003.
*1952: [[Edward Devlin]] and Alfred Burns were executed on [[25 April]] for killing a woman during a robbery in Liverpool. They claimed that they had been doing a different burglary in Manchester, and others involved in the crime supported this. A Home Office report rejected this evidence. Huge crowds gathered outside Liverpool's Walton Prison as they were executed.
*1952: [[Mahmood Hussein Mattan]], a [[Somali people|Somali]] seaman, was hanged on [[3 September]] in Cardiff for murder. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction posthumously in 1998<ref>{{cite web |url= http://netk.net.au/UK/Mattan.asp |title= R v Mahmoud Hussein Mattan (Hanged) Court of Appeal 24 February 1998 |accessdate= 2008-03-30 |last= Moles |first= Dr Robert N. |coauthors= Bibi Sangha |work= Networked Knowledge}}</ref> after hearing that crucial evidence implicating another Somali was withheld at his trial.
*1953: [[Derek Bentley]] was executed on [[28 January]] at Wandsworth prison as an accomplice to the murder of a police officer by his 16-year-old friend Christopher Craig. Craig, a minor, was not executed and instead served 10 years. Derek Bentley was granted a posthumous pardon on [[29 July]] [[1993]]. The Court of Appeal overturned his conviction on [[30 July]] [[1998]].
*1953: [[John Reginald Halliday Christie]] was executed on [[15 July]] at Pentonville for the murder of his wife Ethel.
*1954: [[Styllou Christofi]], aged 53, penultimate woman executed by Britain on [[13 December]].
*1955: [[Ruth Ellis]], aged 28, was executed on [[13 July]], the 15th, youngest, and last woman to be hanged in Britain in the 20th century.
*1959: [[Guenther Podola]] was executed on [[5 November]] 1959, the last person to be hanged for the murder of a policeman.
*1960: [[Francis Forsyth]] was hanged on [[10 November]], the last 18-year-old to be executed in Britain; [[Anthony Joseph Miller]], 19, was hanged in [[Glasgow]]'s [[HM Prison Barlinnie|Barlinnie Prison]] on [[22 December]] [[1960]], the last teenager to be executed in Britain.
*1961: [[Robert McGladdery]], 25, was hanged on [[20 December]] in [[Crumlin Road (HM Prison)|Crumlin Road Gaol]] in [[Belfast]], the last person to be executed in [[Northern Ireland]], for the murder of Pearl Gamble in [[Newry]].
*1962: [[James Hanratty]] was executed at Bedford on [[4 April]] after a controversial rape-murder trial. In 2002 Hanratty's body was exhumed and the Court of Appeal upheld his conviction after Hanratty's DNA was linked to crime scene samples.
*1963: [[Henry John Burnett|Henry Burnett]], aged 21, was executed on [[15 August]] at Craiginches Prison in [[Aberdeen]] for the murder of seaman Thomas Guyan, the last hanging in Scotland.
*1964: [[Peter Anthony Allen]], at Walton Prison in [[Liverpool]], and [[Gwynne Owen Evans]], at [[Manchester (HM Prison)|Strangeways Prison]] in [[Manchester]], were executed on [[13 August]] at 9 a.m. for the murder of [[John Alan West]], the last people executed in Britain [http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/last_ones.htm].
==See also==
*[[Execution by firing squad#Firing squads in the United Kingdom & Republic of Ireland|Execution by firing squad in the United Kingdom]]
*[[Black Cap]]
*[[Courts of the United Kingdom]]
*[[List of executioners]]
*[[Shot at Dawn Memorial]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
*[http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/contents.html A comprehensive site about capital punishment in the UK]
*[http://shootingpeople.org/watch/film.php?film_id=43269 'Hanging With Frank' (video showing UK execution protocol at the old gallows in Barlinnie Prison)]
{{Capital punishment in Europe}}
[[Category:History of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Capital punishment in the United Kingdom| ]]
[[Category:English criminal law]]
[[es:Pena capital en el Reino Unido]]
[[it:Pena di morte nel Regno Unito]]