There were moral and practical considerations to ending the barbarity of state executions in Britain. They are still relevant today
On 28 January, people gathered at Southwark Cathedral for a brief ceremony in memory of Derek Bentley, who was hanged in Wandsworth prison in 1953, exactly 70 years earlier. Bentley was the 19-year-old who was controversially sentenced to death after his 16-year-old friend, Chris Craig, shot PC Sidney Miles dead during an attempted burglary in Croydon.
The service had been organised by Bentley’s niece, Maria Bentley-Dingwall, and was attended by the musician Arthur Kitchener, who wrote The Ballad of Derek Bentley. Afterwards, over coffee, we recalled the circumstances of his trial and execution, and wondered whether anyone would ever consider reintroducing the death penalty. Surely, those days had long passed?
