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Pentonville
prison, |
The first
modern prison opened in London in 1816 - the new Millbank
prison. It had separate cells for 860 prisoners and proved satisfactory, (to
the authorities at least), thus commencing a programme of prison building to
deal with the rapid increase in prisoner numbers occasioned by the ending of
capital punishment for many crimes and a steady reduction in the use of
transportation.
Two Acts of
Parliament were passed allowing for the building of Pentonville prison for the
detention of convicts sentenced to imprisonment or awaiting transportation.
Construction started on the 10th of April 1840 and was completed in 1842. The
total cost to build the new prison was £84,186 12s 2d. It was designed in
accordance with Jeremy Bentham's
"panopticon" design consisting of a central hall, with 5 radiating
wings, all of which are visible to staff positioned at the centre. Pentonville
was originally designed to hold 520 prisoners under the "separate
system," each having his own cell, 13 feet long, 7 feet wide and 9 feet
high. Conditions were vastly better and healthier than at Newgate and similar
older prisons and each prisoner was made to undertake work, such as picking
coir (tarred rope) and weaving. Pentonville became the model for British
prisons and a further 54 were built to the same basic design over the next 6
years. The cost of keeping a prisoner at Pentonville was about 15s. (75p) a week in the 1840's.
Prisoners under sentence of death were not housed at Pentonville until the
closure of Newgate in 1902 when it took over responsibility for executions in
north London. Condemned cells were added and an execution shed built to house
Newgate's gallows which were transferred to it.
The gallows at Pentonville.
Pentonville's execution
facility originally consisted of a purpose built shed in one of the exercise
yards and contained the gallows beam brought from Newgate. Execution sheds were
the norm in most British prisons, after the abolition of public hanging in
1868, and typically had the trapdoors installed over a 12 feet deep brick lined
pit, as drops of up to 10 feet could be given. They were often used as a garage
for the prison van when not required for executions.
In the 1920's, to save the prisoner having to walk the 25 yards to the gallows,
a new execution facility was provided within the prison, comprising a stack of
3 rooms in the middle of one of the wings. The top most room contained the beam
from which up to three 4" link chains could be suspended, for attachment
of the rope(s) which hung down through floor hatches. The beam and the
adjusters for the chain can be seen in the picture. The first floor room, painted
a pale green, contained the lever and trapdoors and the ground floor room acted
as the "pit" into which the prisoner dropped. Albert Pierrepoint
described the trap in 1931 as having two leaves, each some 8 feet 6 inches long
by 2 feet 6 inches wide, with rubber backed spring clips to catch them when
they were released. Also on the first floor were the two separated from the
execution chamber by an ante room. It was just 7 yards from the condemned cells
to the gallows.
A
teaching prison for hangmen.
People who successfully applied to be added to the Home Office list of
executioners attended a one week course at Pentonville where they were taught
how to calculate and set the drop, pinion the prisoner and carry out an
execution with speed and efficiency using a dummy in place of the prisoner.
Albert Pierrepoint described this training in some detail in his autobiography.
The prison engineer was responsible for training new recruits and after they
had had their medical and interview with the governor, he took them straight to
the execution chamber where he showed them round and explained the equipment.
On the second morning, Albert and another trainee met "Old Bill" who
was the dummy used in place of a prisoner. They practised hooding and noosing
"Old Bill," getting the eyelet of the noose in the right place and
learning the system of humane hanging. This is "draw on the white cap,
adjust the noose, whip out the safety pin, push the lever, drop." They
repeated the process over and over until they became proficient and fast. The
next task was to learn to calculate the correct drop from the Home Office
tables. They were taught how to set the drop for differing weights of prisoners
by adjusting the length of the chain (the British rope was a standard length)
and shown how to carry out double executions. These involved getting the
prisoner in Condemned Cell 1 onto the drop and prepared before the prisoner in
Condemned Cell 2 is led out. Lots of other factors were discussed, e.g. what to
do with a prisoner who had earlier attempted suicide by cutting their throat
(not uncommon) or with a person who only had one leg or arm. At the end of the
week, they were given a final test, consisting of a full dummy execution. The
last training course was run in the week commencing Monday 25th April 1960, for Samuel Plant and John
Underhill, both of whom were successful and remained on the list of assistant
executioners until abolition.
Execution boxes and the gallows beam, where required, were sent from
Pentonville to those prisons that did not have permanent facilities. The boxes
contained two nooses, pinioning straps and white hood plus other ancillary
equipment.
Hangmen at Pentonville.
Pentonville's 120 hangings were carried out by "the usual
suspects." The first 7 were done by William Billington with John
Billington doing the next one, before handing it over to Henry Pierrepoint who
officiated at the next 7. John Ellis carried out the next 6, interrupted by Tom
Pierrepoint with the next two, before resuming for a further 17. William Willis
hanged Frederick Bywaters as Ellis was busy at Holloway with Edith Thompson.
After Ellis resigned, the baton was handed on to Robert Baxter for the next 24
executions.
Tom Pierrepoint did a further 4 hangings, two in 1937, one in 1941 and one in
1943 (Charles Koopman), while Alfred Allen carried
out his sole execution here, that of Frederick Murphy in August 1937. Stanley
Cross was to hang the first 3 spies at Pentonville (see below). After that,
Albert Pierrepoint took over and with the exception of the one execution
carried out by his uncle, had a virtual monopoly until 1954. He executed 42 men
between 1941 and 1954 and carried out his first hanging as "No. 1" at
Pentonville when he executed Antonio Mancini on Friday, the 31st of October
1941.
Executions at Pentonville.
One hundred and twenty men were to be hanged at Pentonville between 1902 and
1961, an average of 2 per year. Of these, 112 suffered for murder, 2 for
treason and 6 for spying during wartime. Pentonville carried out, by a margin
of 3, the most 20th century British executions. Its total represents 14.7% of
20th century English and Welsh hangings for murder. The distribution of
executions is quite patchy. The war years were particularly busy with 25
executions between July 1940 and December 1945. In other years, e.g. 1906 -
1908, 1914 & 1915 and 1938 - 1939, there were none.
Here are
a selection of some of the more interesting cases:
John Macdonald became the first to be hanged at Pentonville, on the 30th of
September 1902 for the murder of Henry Groves, whom he had stabbed to death in
a dispute over 5 shillings (25p). He was executed by William Billington.
One of
the most famous cases to end at Pentonville was that of 48 year old Dr. Hawley
Harvey Crippen, who had murdered his domineering wife, American born Cora
Turner (stage name Belle Elmore). The murder took place at Crippen's
house at 39 Hilldrop Crescent in London on or about
the 1st of February 1910. The marriage was not a happy one and she belittled
him at every turn. Eventually Crippen, who was having an affair with his
secretary, Ethel Le Neve, unable to stand her
behaviour any longer, poisoned her with Hyoscine and
then dismembered the body and buried it in the cellar. After being interviewed
by the police over the disappearance of Belle, Crippen and Ethel Le Neve decided to leave the country. They went first to
Antwerp in Belgium where they boarded the steamship SS Montrose bound for
Canada. Ethel shared Crippen's cabin and masqueraded
as his son. Captain Kendall, the skipper of the Montrose, recognised Crippen
from a newspaper photograph and sent a ship to shore telegraph from the
Montrose to its owners who alerted Scotland Yard. This was the first time a
ship to shore telegraph had been used in a criminal case.
Inspector Drew of the Yard took a passage on the faster steamship, the SS Laurentic, and was able to catch up with the Montrose in
Canadian waters. He boarded the Montrose from the pilot's launch on July 31st,
1911 and arrested Crippen and Le Neve. This drama on
the high seas filled the newspapers of the time and together with the sinister
sounding name of the prime suspect, made it the "crime of the
century" during that summer in the press. Crippen came to trial at the Old
Bailey on the 18th of October before Lord Alverstone,
the then Lord Chief Justice. The trial ended on the 22nd of October with the
jury taking less than 30 minutes to convict Crippen who was inevitably
sentenced to death. A clandestine photo of him in the dock was taken and this
has appeared in many books, (it was then and still is, illegal to photograph a
prisoner in the dock).
Crippen was returned to Pentonville to await his appointment with the hangman.
His last request, which was allowed, was to have a photo of Ethel Le Neve in his top pocket when he was hanged at 9.00 a.m. on
the dark and foggy morning of Wednesday, the 23rd of November 1911 by John
Ellis. He was 5' 4" tall and weighed 136 lbs. so Ellis gave him a drop of
7' 9" inches. In his memoirs, Ellis recalls that Crippen smiled as he
walked towards him. A large crowd had gathered outside the prison to see the
execution notice posted.
Ethel Le Neve was charged with being an accessory to
the murder but was acquitted at her trial.
Frederick
Henry Sedden (also given as Seddon)
was a 40 year old poisoner who was hanged by John Ellis on the 18th of April
1912 for the murder of Eliza Mary Barrow. Again, John Ellis was the
executioner. Sedden was 5' 3" tall and also
weighed 136 lbs and was given a drop of 7' 1". Approaching the gallows in
the execution shed in the prison yard, Sedden was
somewhat unnerved by the site of the noose and the sudden sounding of a loud
horn of a tourist coach passing the prison. Ellis was afraid he was going to
faint and got the execution over as quickly as he could - in just 25 seconds, a
record at that time.
Sedden had persuaded the wealthy Mrs. Barrow to sign
over her several properties to him in return for an annuity for the rest of her
life. Obviously the longer Mrs. Barrow then lived the more it would cost Sedden. She was only 50 at the time so potentially could
have lived for many more years. The prosecution at his Old Bailey trial in
March 1912 contended that Sedden had administered
arsenic to her for this reason. The jury took an hour to find him guilty
although he maintained his innocence until the end.
Sir Roger
Casement is unusual in that he was hanged for treason. His execution took place
on Thursday, the 3rd of August 1916 and was again carried out by John Ellis.
Casement was Irish by birth but held a British passport. Soon after the
outbreak of World War 1, he moved from Ireland to Germany living in Berlin for
18 months and attempting to enlist the support of Germany in the Irish struggle
for independence from Britain. Germany sent arms to Ireland for use in the
Easter uprising of 1916, but they were obsolete weapons and largely useless so
Casement sent a message to the Irish rebels which was intercepted by the
British. On April 20th, 1916, Casement returned to Ireland on board a German
submarine and was quickly arrested and taken to London. He was charged with
treason for having conspired with Britain's enemies in time of war. His trial
opened at the Old Bailey on the 26th of June 1916, and he was convicted 3 days
later. Prior to execution, he was stripped of his knighthood. As was normal
after the hanging, he was buried within Pentonville but in 1965 the prime
minister, Harold Wilson, acceded to a request from the Irish for his body to be
exhumed and returned there for burial in accordance with Casement's wishes.
Private Theodore William John Schurch was the other
man hanged at Pentonville for treason on the 4th of January 1946. Schurch, had been found guilty of treason by a General
Court Martial convened at the Duke of York's Regiment Head Quarters in Chelsea
London in September 1945.
One of
the youngest men to suffer at Pentonville was Henry Julius Jacoby who was just
18. He was hanged by Ellis on Wednesday, the 7th of June 1922 for the murder of
66 year old Lady Alice White for whom he had battered to death in her hotel
room in the course of trying to rob her. Jacoby worked as pantry boy in the
hotel and quickly confessed to the murder. He was tried at the Old Bailey on
the 28th of April 1922, the jury making a recommendation to mercy, as they were
not convinced that the lad had intended to kill but rather that he did so in
panic when Lady White woke to find him in her bedroom and screamed. Ellis
recalls that Jacoby seemed completely unconcerned about his impending fate and
was playing a makeshift game of cricket with one of the warders in the exercise
yard on the afternoon before, when Ellis went too have a look at him. After
Ellis had pinioned his wrists in the condemned cell, Jacoby made a point of
thanking the governor and waiting prison officers for their kindness to him in
Pentonville. He went on to the execution shed and was described by Ellis as the
calmest person there. Jacoby was one of 4 teenage boys to be hanged here. The
others were 18 year old Arthur Henry Bishop on Friday, the14th of August 1925,
19 year old John Frederick Stockwell on Wednesday, the14th of November 1934 and
19 year old William Henry Turner on Wednesday, the 24th of March 1943.
Forty(33.3%) of the men who were executed were under 25 at the time of their
crime.
Things did not always go so smoothly as in the Jacoby case. Ellis hanged two
murderers on Tuesday, the 17th of March 1911, both of whom fainted as they
stood side by side on the trap and had to be supported by warders. The men were
40 year old Fransisco Godhino
and 41 year old Edward Hill who had been sentenced for completely unrelated
murders. Double hangings of unrelated criminals were still quite common at this
time.
On the
9th of January 1923, Frederick Edward Bywaters was led to the gallows by
William Willis for stabbing to death his lover's husband, Percy Thomson. To the
very last, he protested Edith Thompson 's innocence. At the same moment, less
than a mile away, she was being hanged at Holloway for her part in the crime. Click here for more details of this famous case which became a
cause celebré.
A similar
double execution was to take place on the 31st of May 1928 when Frederick Guy
Browne was hanged at Pentonville while his accomplice William Henry Kennedy was
being executed at Wandsworth prison. Browne and Kennedy both had criminal
records and in the early hours of the 27th of September 1927, were driving
together in a stolen car in Essex. Police constable George Gutteridge
spotted them and signalled them to stop. Gutteridge
questioned them and was not satisfied with the answers they were giving him. He
took out his pocket book to record the events and as he did so, Browne fired
two shots at him from the driver's seat. These shots did not kill the constable
who staggered backwards and fell in the road. Browne got out of the car telling
Kennedy, "I'll finish the bugger" and standing over PC Gutteridge, fired a shot into each of his eyes. Browne and
Kennedy drove off to London leaving PC Gutteridge
dead in the road still holding his pencil. It was a crime that appalled the
nation at the time and made headline news. The police questioned all those
known to carry guns and in due course got to Browne, who was arrested in
January 1928, still in possession of the revolver that had been used to murder
PC Gutteridge. Kennedy was arrested in Liverpool 5
days later for car theft, after trying to shoot the arresting officer. Kennedy
admitted being with Browne in the stolen car but insisted that Browne had done
the shooting and that he could do nothing to intervene as he was scared of
Browne. Browne's defence was that he was at home on the night of the murder and
this was born out by his wife and landlady. However, the Old Bailey jury
convicted them both of being jointly responsible for the murder, and Mr.
Justice Avery sentenced them to death on the 27th of April. Browne was hanged
by Robert Baxter while Kennedy was executed by Thomas Pierrepoint.
Double executions, where the prisoners stood side by side on the same gallows,
were by now rare in the UK.
During
World War 2, 6 spies were hanged at Pentonville under the provisions of Section
1 of the Treachery Act 1940. They were Carl Meier, Jose Waldeburg,
Charles Albert Van Der Kieboom,
Oswald John Job, Pierre Richard Charles Neukermans
and Joseph Jan Van Hove.
Jose Waldeburg was German while Carl Meier and
Charles Van Der Kieboom
were Dutchmen, all of whom had landed on the South Coast and were caught almost
immediately in possession of a short wave radio transmitter and a quantity of
pound notes. They had intended to pose as refugees and feed information back to
Germany on military installations and troop movements. They were tried "in
camera" at the Old Bailey on the 22nd of November 1940 before Mr. Justice Wrottesley, sitting with a conventional 12 person jury but
without representatives of the press and public, who were excluded from the
trial in case sensitive information leaked out. All 3 were convicted and
sentenced to hang. Waldeburg and Meier were hanged by
Thomas Pierrepoint on Tuesday, the 10th of December 1940 and Kieboom a week later on the 17th by Stanley Cross, having
had his appeal dismissed. It is not known whether the first two were hanged
side by side or at hour and a half intervals.
Oswald
Job was born to German parents in London and at 59, was the oldest of the 6. He
had moved to France before the war but was interned in 1940 due to his country
of origin. He made friends with his German guards and was recruited by German
intelligence who moved him to Spain from where he was able to get back to
London. The British Postal Censorship service noticed a frequent exchange of
letters between the Job family and Job's former friends in the internment camp.
However, Job's relatives when interviewed, denied ever sending the letters or
knowing the inmates in the internment camp. When security personnel visited
Job, they found espionage equipment and he was therefore arrested, coming to
trial at Old Bailey in January 1944 and being hanged on the 16th of March of
that year.
Pierre
Richard Charles Neukermans was a Belgian who had been
recruited by German intelligence. He obtained legal access to Britain as a
refugee but was sending information on ship movements between Britain and the
Belgian Congo to the S.S. officer who had helped him "escape" from
Nazi occupied Belgium. He was tried in April/May 1944 and had his appeal
dismissed on the 8th of June. He was hanged by Albert Pierrepoint on the 23rd
of June 1944.
Joseph
Jan Van Hove was also Belgium and may have been set up as a double agent. He
was arrested on entry into the country in February 1943 and under interrogation
admitted he was intending to work as a German agent. In those sensitive times,
this was enough to send him to the gallows and he too was hanged by Albert
Pierrepoint on Wednesday, the 12th of July 1944.
Unusually, 5 young prisoners of war were hanged at Pentonville on Saturday, the
6th of October 1945. They were Joachim Palme-Goltz, Josep Mertins, Heinz Brueling, Erich Koenig and Kurt Zuchlsdorff.
All 5 were in their early 20’s. They had been convicted of the murder of
Sergeant Major Wolfganf Rosterg
on Saturday, the 23rd of December 1944, who they had beaten and hanged within
their prisoner of war camp as they suspected that he had given them away to the
authorities for attempting to escape. While they admitted that they had killed Rosterg, they viewed the killing as the execution of a
traitor (hence presumably why they hanged him) rather than murder. They were
tried at Kensington Palace Gardens before a military tribunal and quickly
convicted. Albert Pierrepoint, assisted by Steve Wade and Harry Allen, carried
out the executions. It is assumed that there was one triple and one double
hanging at hour and a half intervals, in the order that they are mentioned
above. A further two were to be hanged for a similar offence the following
month after trial by court martial at Kensington Palace Gardens. They were Armin Keuhne (21) and Emil Schmittendorf (31) who were executed by Albert Pierrepoint
on Friday, the 16th of November for battering to death Gerhardt Rettig in a P.o.W. camp near
Sheffield because they believed he had betrayed them over an escape plan.
Two
hangings were carried out by Albert Pierrepoint on Friday, the 21st of December
1945. The first, at 8.00 a.m., was that of John Riley Young. Forty year old
Young had been convicted of the brutal murder of Frederick and Cissie Lucas whom he had battered to death in the course of
robbing them. He tried to commit suicide and was arrested in hospital where he
immediately confessed to the crime. The second execution took place an hour and
a half later when Sgt. James McNicol went to the gallows for the murder of a
fellow sergeant at the anti-aircraft battery at Thorpe Bay near Southend in
Essex. In a highly intoxicated state exacerbated by malaria medication, 30 year
old McNichol had fired a rifle, which he had
"borrowed" from the armoury, into the sergeant's hut after an
altercation with Sgt. Leonard Cox over a young woman whom McNichol
fancied and who was dancing with another on the day after VJ Day (the 16th of
August 1945) at a celebration dance to mark Britain's victory. The shots,
however, killed his best friend Sgt. Donald Kirkaldie and only injured Sgt.
Cox. McNichol was arrested the following day having
slept off the alcohol, completely unaware that he had killed his best mate. He
offered no resistance and cooperated fully with the police, giving an open and
truthful statement. The trial took place at the Essex Assizes in Chelmsford
before Mr. Justice Lewis on November 7th, 1945 and lasted for two days. Mr. Tristram Beresford, defending McNichol,
invited the jury to bring in a verdict of manslaughter on the grounds that
James was too drunk to form any intention of killing anyone. (To be guilty of
murder, the prosecution must prove that the prisoner actually intended to kill
the victim.) This they rejected and he was therefore sentenced to death. His
appeal, on the grounds of his inability to form the intent to kill due to being
drunk, was rejected on December 19th. Having studied the original case papers
in detail, I think there is good reason to agree with his defence counsel that
the proper verdict should have been one of manslaughter rather than murder.
Neville
George Clevelly Heath.
Twenty eight year old Heath murdered two women, his girlfriend Margery Gardner,
aged 32, and 21 year old Doreen Marshall, both in the summer of 1946. Heath had
previous convictions and had been court-martialled 3 times while serving in the
forces during the war. Margery Gardner enjoyed masochistic sex and Heath was a
sadist so there was an obvious bond. They acted out their fantasies in the Pembridge Court Hotel in London's Notting Hill Gate where
Heath tied Margery up and whipped her with a diamond weave pattern leather
whip. He had also bitten her breasts and inserted an object into her vagina
causing heavy bleeding, all before suffocating her, probably to stifle her
screams on the evening of Friday, the 21st of June. Her body was discovered in
Room 4 of the hotel by staff the following morning. Heath had left the hotel
and went to stay with his fiancée, Yvonne Symonds, in
Worthing in Sussex. Heath told Yvonne about the murder in the hotel and said
that Margery had gone to the hotel with a man named Jack and that he had let
them use his room. He also said that he had seen the body, although he did not
tell her that he had been in any way involved in the killing. After leaving
her, he wrote a letter to Scotland Yard telling them the same story. Passing
himself off as Group Captain Rupert Brooke, he met his second victim, Doreen
Marshall, at a dance in Bournemouth at the beginning of July 1946. He invited
her to dinner at his hotel and later murdered her. Again, her breasts were
savagely bitten and a sharp object had been thrust into her vagina. He hid her
naked body in bushes and covered it over with her clothes. The hotel manager
asked him to contact the police who were looking for Yvonne (as a missing
person) and he went voluntarily to Bournemouth police station for an interview,
where the sharp eyed detective noticed his strong resemblance to the photograph
of Neville Heath wanted in connection with Margery Gardner's murder. He was
duly arrested and charged with her murder and later with Yvonne Symond's murder as well. He was tried at the Old Bailey
before Mr. Justice Morris on the 24th of September 1946 and put forward a
defence of insanity which was rejected. Three weeks later, on Wednesday, the
16th of October, he kept his 9.00 a.m. appointment with Albert Pierrepoint. His
last request was for a large whiskey.
Timothy
John Evans and John Reginald Halliday Christie.
To the Old Bailey jury on that January afternoon in 1950, it must have seemed
like an open and shut case of a rather pathetic little man who had murdered his
baby daughter, Geraldine (the crime for which they were trying him), and who
had apparently confessed to the killing of his wife as well. There appeared to
be a strong prosecution case and he was duly found guilty and sentenced to
death, his execution taking place on Thursday, the 9th of March 1950. It was
one of those cases which would have faded almost instantly from the public
memory were it not to be for the gruesome discovery of more bodies at Evan's
erstwhile home, 10 Rillington Place, 3 years later.
The Evans
had sublet their rooms at Rillington Place by John Christie, an insignificant
little man, bald and bespectacled, who was nicknamed "Reggie no dick"
by local children and who had a criminal record stretching back some years.
Christie murdered at least 7 women and it could have been more. His victims
were Ruth Fuerst in 1943, Muriel Eady
in 1944, Beryl Evans (Timothy's wife) in 1949, Ethel Christie (Christie's own
wife) in 1952, Kathleen Maloney in 1953, Rita Nelson and Hectorina
MacLennan, also in 1953. Most of these women he had
lured to the house and then had gassed and strangled them. It is thought he
indulged in sex acts with them after he had rendered them unconscious, before
burying or hiding their bodies around the house and garden. In early 1953, with
the house somewhat crowded with dead bodies, Christie decided to move and
sublet the property to a Mr. and Mrs. Reilly who quickly noticed a foul smell
in the kitchen. When the owner investigated it, he discovered 3 of the women's
bodies hidden in an alcove off the kitchen which had been wallpapered over. As
one can imagine, this discovery made headline news. Christie had left his
lodgings and was wandering the streets before being apprehended on London's
embankment on March 31st, 1953. Under questioning, Christie admitted to the murders
of everyone except Geraldine Evans and seemed to be working on the theory of
"the more the merrier," probably in the hope of being found guilty
but insane. Christie would not, however, admit to killing the baby despite
repeated questioning and only admitted killing its mother after sometime in
custody. He came to trial at the Old Bailey on June 22nd, 1953 before Mr.
Justice Finnemore and his counsel offered the
expected defence of insanity. The jury took just under an hour and a half to
reject this and reach a guilty verdict after a 3 day trial. Three weeks later,
Christie stood under the same beam as Evans had done and at 9.00 a.m. on the
morning of Wednesday, the 15th of July 1953, was also to be hanged by Albert
Pierrepoint as Evans had been. The Home Office allowed for the re-burial of
Timothy Evans' body in consecrated ground in late 1965 and he was granted a
posthumous pardon on the 18th of October 1966, as Christie had given evidence
against him and had admitted killing Beryl. However, controversy still
continues as to whether Evans killed either his wife or daughter or both.
Professor Keith Simpson, the famous forensic pathologist who was involved in
the cases, does not believe that Evans was innocent of both crimes. The film
and book both entitled 10 Rillington Place provide a valuable insight into the
two cases. Evan's case was another important one in the ending of capital
punishment in
Britain’s
last double (side by side) hanging took place at Pentonville on Thursday, the
17th of June 1954, when 22 year old Kenneth Gilbert and 24 year old Ian Grant
were executed by Albert Pierrepoint (assisted by Royston Rickard, Harry Smith
and Joe Broadbent) for the murder of 55 year old George Smart in the course of
a robbery. George Smart was the hotel
night porter at Aban Court Hotel in Kensington and on
the night of Tuesday, the 9th of March, caught these two young men breaking
into the hotel. They attacked him and
then tied him up and gagged him, ultimately causing his death by asphyxia. They blamed each other at the trial and
assured the jury that they had not intended to kill Mr. Smart. The jury were not impressed with this argument
and neither was Lord Goddard when he dismissed their subsequent appeal. They had stolen just £2 and a quantity of
cigarettes – hardly worth dying for!
Double hangings were outlawed by the Homicide Act of 1957.
Twenty
one year old Edwin Albert Arthur Bush became the last man to hang at
Pentonville on the 6th of July 1961 when he was executed for the murder of shop
assistant, Elsie Batten. He had battered and stabbed her to death in order to
steal a sword from the antiques shop where she worked. A half cast Indian, Bush
sought to use racism as a defence to killing Elsie, whom he said had made
racist remarks to him causing him to lose his temper and lash out at her. The
Old Bailey jury were unimpressed with this. Under the terms of the Homicide Act
of 1957, this form of robbery-murder was still a capital crime.
HMP
Pentonville remains in use as a major London prison to this day.
A full list of those executed at Pentonville between 1902 and 1961 may be made
available upon request to those requiring it for research purposes.