Death Penalty News

U.K.’s anti-gay laws, which date back to colonial times, remain on the books in dozens of countries The U.K. is set to pardon individuals convicted under now-abolished laws criminalizing gay sex, more than 50 years after the country first began to decriminalize homosexual relationships.  An amendment to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will expand the existing scope of past convictions that can be pardoned. Currently, the list includes just nine former offences, according to U.K. newspaper The Guardian. They are “largely focused on the repealed offenses of buggery and gross indecency between men.”  The legislation has passed the House of Commons and is currently awaiting approval from the House of Lords. Were it to become law, people will be able to have any convictions under laws that previously prohibited same-sex activity wiped from their records. People in England and Wales have been able to apply to have historical convictions for gay sex thrown out since 201...

The terrible miscarriage of justice in the case of Timothy Evans would feature prominently in the campaign to end the death penalty in Britain In 1950 a young Welshman was hanged for a heinous crime – the murder of his wife and daughter in the London flat where the family lived. The main prosecution witness in the trial had been another tenant in the property, a seemingly mild-mannered post office clerk and former police special constable who told the court about the bitter rows he had heard between the accused and his partner. After a trial lasting just three days Timothy Evans was convicted and subsequently executed. The man whose testimony had played such a large part in securing the conviction was John Christie – a man who would later be unmasked as a serial killer and necrophiliac. And among his victims had been Evans' wife, Beryl, and the couple's 14-month-old daughter Geraldine. The wrongful conviction and hanging of Evans would go on to play a maj...

What is the point of sending someone to prison - retribution or rehabilitation? Twenty years ago, Norway moved away from a punitive "lock-up" approach and sharply cut reoffending rates. The BBC's Emma Jane Kirby went to see the system in action, and to meet prison officers trained to serve as mentors and role models for prisoners.

Execution was the family business for Albert Pierrepoint Those that drank in his pub had no idea. They were totally unaware that the man serving them a pint of ale after a hard day’s graft had killed more than 400 men and women. It wasn’t something that Albert liked to talk about. He was no serial killer, he was Britain’s most prolific hangman, and from as far back as he could remember, he always wanted to put people to death. He hanged seven people in Wales in just six years, between 1948 and 1954, including the last person to be hanged in Cardiff, and the last person to be sentenced to death in Carmarthen. So what made Albert Pierrepoint the most feared and respected hangman in the land and the last man to hang a woman in Britain? Well, killing was a family business. Albert's father Henry and his uncle Thomas were the last people to hang a woman in Wales, and they put five people to death in Cardiff, alone.. Henry Pierrepoint was born in 187...

Every story about a murder is followed by comments calling for the death penalty. This is why that's stupid I recently wrote a piece about 17 teenagers in Wales who were convicted of murder . This involved spending a day and a half trawling through old articles, court reports and archives. Initially I thought it would be tricky to find young killers, depressingly, that was not the case. That is not to say that this sort of crime is common in Wales, far from it, just they tend be so high profile you can’t miss them. After writing the story I walked back along Cardiff’s Queen Street on my way home. If I am been brutally honest, I did find the 15-year-olds on their bikes far more intimidating than usual and felt none of the usual compulsion to push them over as they wheelie towards me. However there was one thing that scared me far more than Clayton on his BMX (I know his name because his mate said “Clayton give me my f***ing chips back”). The thing that sca...

On the night of Friday 15 November 1957, 24-year-old Vivian Teed broke into the sub-post office in Fforestfach, Swansea. He did not expect to be disturbed, but was almost immediately accosted by the postmaster, 73-year-old William Williams. After a struggle broke out, Teed attacked Mr Williams with a hammer he had brought along to force an entry, before fleeing empty-handed. Both men would lose their lives - Mr Williams from 27 blows at Teed's hand, Teed 6 months later on 6 May 1958, as the last man to be hanged in Wales. On the surface, the murder was an open and shut case, but it remains controversial and arguably hastened the abolition of capital punishment in the UK. After the briefest of manhunts, the hammer - which had snapped with the ferocity of the attack - was traced to a works toolbox belonging to Teed's father. Footprints in Mr Williams' blood were matched to Teed's shoes, and blood splatters were found on his trousers and coat. ...