Derek Bentley


Derek William Bentley was a British man who was hanged for being the accomplice of a murder of a policeman during an attempted burglary. His accomplice, Christopher Craig, then aged 16, was convicted of the murder. Bentley was convicted as a party to the crime under the English law principle of joint enterprise, as the burglary had been committed in mutual understanding and the bringing of deadly weapons. The outcome of the trial, and Home Secretary David Maxwell Fyfe's refusal to grant clemency to Bentley, were highly controversial.
The jury at the trial found Bentley guilty based in large part on the prosecution's interpretation of the ambiguous phrase "Let him have it", Bentley's alleged exhortation to Craig, which prosecutors argued was an order to shoot and defence counsel argued was an order to surrender; this after Lord Chief Justice Goddard had described Bentley as "mentally aiding" the murder. Bentley was sentenced to death. He was executed despite a recommendation for mercy by the jury.
The Bentley case became a cause célèbre and led to a 40-year-long campaign to win Bentley a posthumous pardon, which was granted in 1993, and then a further campaign for the quashing of his murder conviction, which occurred in 1998. Bentley's case is thus considered a case of miscarriage of justice alongside that of Timothy Evans, and pivotal in the successful campaign to abolish capital punishment in the United Kingdom.

Early life

Bentley was born to William and Lilian Bentley, who raised their family in Blackfriars, London. He had one brother and two sisters. At his birth, it was discovered that he was the first of twins; the other infant was stillborn. Another sister, along with his aunt and grandmother, died in The Blitz. In infancy, Derek survived pneumonia. At age 4, he fell onto concrete from the back of a parked truck and appeared to have an epileptic seizure. He suffered from severe headaches and petit mal seizures, which caused him to lose track of time. His parents reported that he had three additional grand mal seizures, including one in which they said he nearly died of choking.
In 1944, Bentley entered Norbury Manor Secondary Modern School, after failing the eleven-plus examination. In 1948, at age 15, he was found to have an IQ score of 66, indicating a mental age of 10 years and 4 months. His reading age was 4.5 years; that is, he was illiterate.
In March 1948, he and another boy were arrested for theft. Bentley was sentenced to serve three years at Kingswood Approved School near Bristol. Christopher Craig also attended the school.
At the Child Guidance Clinic near Kingswood, Bentley's IQ score was found to be 77. Kingswood staff reported that he was "lazy, indifferent, voluble and of the 'wise guy' type"; a court described him as "indifferent, smug, self-satisfied and ready to tell tales". He was examined twice by EEG: a reading on 16 November 1949 indicated he was an epileptic and a reading on 9 February 1950 was "abnormal". After his arrest in November 1952, further IQ tests were administered at Brixton Prison. He was described as "borderline feeble-minded", with a verbal score of 71, a performance IQ of 87 and a full scale IQ of 77. Bentley was discovered to still be "quite illiterate". The prison medical officer said he "cannot even recognise or write down all the letters of the alphabet".
Bentley was released from Kingswood on 28 July 1950, a year early, though he was told that he would remain under the care of Kingswood until 29 September 1954. He was a recluse for the rest of 1950, rarely venturing out of the house until January 1951.
In March 1951, he was hired by a moving company but, in May 1952, injured his back and had to leave the job. In May 1952, he was hired by the Croydon Corporation as a refuse collector; one month later, he was demoted to street sweeper and the following month, he was fired. He was still unemployed at the time of his final arrest.

Crime

On the night of Sunday 2 November 1952, Bentley and Craig broke into the warehouse of the Barlow & Parker confectionery company at 27–29 Tamworth Road, Croydon. Craig armed himself with a Colt New Service.455 Webley calibre revolver, the barrel of which he had shortened so that it could be carried easily in his pocket. He also carried a number of undersized rounds for the revolver, some of which he had modified by hand to fit the gun. Bentley carried a small knife and a knuckleduster, which had been given to him by Craig, who had been fined the previous year for possessing a firearm without a certificate.
At around 9:15pm, neighbours called police after spotting Craig and Bentley climbing over the gate and up a drainpipe to the roof of the warehouse. When police arrived, Craig and Bentley hid behind the lift-housing. Craig taunted the police. One of the officers, Detective Constable Frederick Fairfax, climbed the drainpipe to the roof and grabbed hold of Bentley, who broke free. What happened then is uncertain: police witnesses later claimed that Fairfax ordered Craig to "Hand over the gun, lad" and Bentley shouted, "Let him have it, Chris". Craig fired, striking Fairfax in the shoulder. Fairfax was nonetheless again able to restrain Bentley, who told Fairfax that Craig had further ammunition for the gun. Bentley had not used the two weapons in his pockets.
Additional uniformed police officers arrived. The first to reach the roof was Police Constable Sidney Miles, who was immediately killed by a shot to the head. After exhausting his ammunition and being cornered, Craig jumped 30 feet from the roof onto a greenhouse, fracturing his spine and left wrist.

Trial

The following day, Craig and Bentley were charged with the murder of PC Miles. The doctrine of felony murder or "constructive malice" meant that a charge of manslaughter was not an option, as the "malicious intent" of the armed robbery was transferred to the shooting. From 9 to 11 December 1952 they were tried by jury before the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Goddard, at the Old Bailey in London. Christmas Humphreys, Senior Treasury Counsel, led for the prosecution.
At the time of the burglary and Miles' death, murder was a capital offence in England and Wales. The Children and Young Persons Act 1933 prevented execution of those under 18; consequently, of the two defendants, despite Craig having fired the fatal shot, only Bentley was old enough to face the death penalty if convicted. Bentley's best defence was that he was effectively under arrest when Miles was killed. Questions were also raised about how he was able to make, understand and sign his police statement.
There were three principal points of contention at trial:
Firstly, the defence claimed there was ambiguity in the evidence as to how many shots were fired and by whom. A later forensic ballistics expert cast doubt on whether Craig could have hit Miles if he had shot at him deliberately. The fatal bullet was not found. Craig had used bullets of different undersized calibres, and the sawn-off barrel made it inaccurate to a degree of six feet at the range from which he fired.
Secondly, there was controversy over the existence and meaning of Bentley's alleged instruction to Craig: "Let him have it, Chris". Craig and Bentley denied that Bentley had said the words while the police officers testified that he had said them. Another officer said that Bentley had not said the words, but his evidence was not considered. Further, Bentley's counsel argued that even if he had said the words, it could not be proven that Bentley had intended the words to mean the informal meaning of "shoot him, Chris", instead of the literal meaning of "give him the gun, Chris".
Thirdly, there was disagreement over whether Bentley was fit to stand trial at all, in light of his mental capacity. The Principal Medical Officer at Brixton was Dr. J.C.M. Matheson; he referred Bentley to Dr. Denis Hill, a psychiatrist at Maudsley Hospital. Hill's report stated that Bentley was illiterate and of low intelligence. While agreeing that Bentley was of low intelligence, Matheson was of the opinion that Bentley did not have epilepsy and was not a "feeble-minded person" under the Mental Deficiency Acts. Matheson said that he was sane and fit to plead and stand trial. English law at the time did not recognise the concept of diminished responsibility due to retarded development, though it existed in Scottish law. Criminal insanity, where the accused is unable to distinguish right from wrong, was then the only medical defence to murder. Bentley, while he had a severe debilitation, was not insane.
At trial, Bentley's counsel allowed him to give evidence, during which he denied obvious facts, leading Craig's lawyer, John Parris, to call him "a lying moron".
The jury took 75 minutes to decide that both Craig and Bentley were guilty of Miles' murder, but added a plea for mercy for Bentley. Bentley was sentenced to death, while Craig was ordered to be detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure. He was released in May 1963, got married and became a plumber.
Bentley was originally scheduled to be hanged on 30 December 1952, but his execution was postponed to allow for an appeal. Bentley's lawyers filed appeals highlighting the ambiguities of the ballistic evidence, Bentley's mental age and the fact that he did not fire the fatal shot. Bentley's appeal was heard on 13 January 1953 and was unsuccessful.

Denial of reprieve and execution

When his appeal was turned down, Bentley's life was placed in the hands of the Home Secretary, David Maxwell Fyfe, who had to decide whether to recommend that the Crown exercise the royal prerogative of mercy to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment. Lord Goddard forwarded the jury's recommendation of mercy, but added that he "could find no mitigating circumstances".
Maxwell Fyfe's autobiography, published in 1964, refers to the factors which he took into consideration: "the evidence of the trial, medical reports, family or other private circumstances... and police reports,... the available precedents, and... public opinion". He went on to say that Bentley's case also involved the issue that it was a police officer who was killed. Maxwell Fyfe then stresses that a reprieve would mean the Home Secretary is "intervening in the due process of the law".
There was much political pressure to commute Bentley's sentence, including a memorandum signed by over 200 members of Parliament. Despite several attempts, Parliament was given no opportunity to debate the issue until after the sentence had been carried out. The Home Office also refused to grant Dr. Hill permission to make his report public.
At 9am on 28 January 1953, Bentley was hanged at Wandsworth Prison, London, by Albert Pierrepoint, with Harry Allen assisting. There were protests outside the prison and two people were arrested and fined for damage to property.
In March 1966, Bentley's remains were removed from Wandsworth and re-interred in Croydon Cemetery.