Derek Bentley

From Freepedia

Derek Bentley (30 June, 1933 - 28 January, 1953) was hanged at the age of 19 for a murder committed by a friend, creating a cause célèbre and leading to a 45-year long successful campaign to win him a posthumous pardon.

Bentley had a difficult upbringing during which he suffered serious injury from a V1 Flying Bomb and developed epilepsy. He was of limited intelligence (mental age of 11), highly impressionable, and illiterate when, together with Christopher Craig, aged 16, he broke into a warehouse in Croydon, South London, England on 2 November 1952. Craig had a revolver. The two youths were spotted and the police were called.

When the police arrived, the two boys hid behind a lift-housing. Detective Sergeant Frederick Fairfax climbed onto the roof and managed to grab Bentley. Bentley managed to break free and was said by a number of police witnesses to have shouted "Let him have it, Chris". Craig opened fire with his revolver, grazing Fairfax's shoulder; nevertheless Fairfax managed to arrest Bentley, who told him that Craig had a Colt .45 and plenty of ammunition.

Following the arrival of more policemen, a group was sent onto the roof. The first policeman to reach the roof was Police Constable Sidney Miles, whom Craig immediately shot dead with a bullet to the head. After exhausting his ammunition, Craig jumped some 10 metres from the roof, fracturing his spine and left wrist, at which point he was arrested.

It was clear that even if he was convicted of murder, Craig would not face execution as he was below the age of 18. Bentley on the other hand was over 18, although much less mature. The case was a relatively simple one for the prosecution, which took place before the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Goddard, at the Old Bailey (Central Criminal Court, in London), although as the trial progressed the prosecution case seemed far less certain -- the police seemed unsure how many shots were fired, and by whom; a ballistics expert failed to show that it was Craig's gun that had fired the fatal shot; what did Bentley mean by "Let him have it", if indeed he had said it? Was Craig to give the policeman the gun, or shoot the officer? It was clear that Bentley was illiterate and mentally subnormal, and ill-equipped to undergo cross-examination at the trial.

The jury took just 75 minutes to decide that both Bentley and Craig were guilty of the murder of PC Miles. Bentley was sentenced to death, while Craig was ordered to be detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure (he was eventually released after serving 10 years imprisonment).

Various appeals highlighting the ambiguous evidence, Bentley's mental age, and the fact that he did not fire the fatal shot did not secure a reprieve, and on 28 January 1953 Derek Bentley was hanged at Wandsworth Prison, London, by Albert Pierrepoint.

Joint Enterprise

Following the execution there was a long campaign, usually led by Bentley's sister Iris, to secure a posthumous pardon for him. On 29 July 1993 Bentley was granted a royal pardon in respect of the sentence of death passed upon him and carried out.

A Court of Appeal verdict of July 17th 1997, in a case with similarities to the Bentley case, cleared Philip English of murdering Sergeant Bill Forth in March 1993, with the reasons being given by Lord Hutton. English had been handcuffed before his companion Paul Weddle killed Sgt. Forth with a concealed knife. The existing joint enterprise law allowed the conviction of English for murder because they had both been attacking Sgt. Forth with wooden staves, making English an accessory to any murder committed by Weddle as part of that assault. Lord Hutton made the 'fine distinction' that a concealed knife was a far more deadly weapon than a wooden stave, so that proof of English's knowledge of it was necessary for conviction. The appeal may have influenced the allowing of a posthumous referral of the Bentley case.

Eventually, on 30 July 1998 the Court of Appeal overturned Bentley's conviction for murder 45 years earlier. Though Bentley was not accused of attacking any of the police officers being shot at by Craig, for him to be convicted of murder as an accessory in a joint enterprise it was necessary for the prosecution to prove that he knew that Craig had a deadly weapon when they began the break-in. Craig was armed with a large knife as well as the gun.

Lord Goddard may have had the problem when summing up that much of the evidence was not directly relevant to Bentley's defence. Lord Bingham ruled that Lord Goddard had not made it clear to the jury that the prosecution was required to have been proved Bentley to have known that Craig was armed. He further ruled that Lord Goddard had failed to raise the question of Bentley's withdrawal from their joint enterprise. This would require the prosecution to prove the absence of any attempt by Bentley to signal to Craig that he wanted Craig to surrender his weapons to the police. In an unprecedented and damning attack, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham, ruled that his predecessor and Bentley's trial judge, Lord Chief Justice Lord Goddard, had denied Bentley "that fair trial that is the birthright of every British citizen." In a 52-page judgment, Lord Bingham placed the blame for the miscarriage of justice with Lord Goddard. Describing Lord Goddard as "blatantly prejudiced", Lord Bingham concluded that he had misdirected the jury and that in his summing-up had put unfair pressure on the jury to convict.

Lord Mustill had asked for new laws on homicide when setting out his reasons at the time of Lord Hutton's ruling on English's appeal. However, Lord Bingham's ruling blamed Lord Goddard for a miscarriage of justice without making further alteration to the law on joint enterprise. The English judgment, delivered just over two months after the Labour government took office, remained the newest precedent in joint enterprise law, though the Bentley verdict attracted far more media attention.

The 1991 movie Let Him Have It, starring Christopher Eccleston as Bentley, relates the story, as does the Elvis Costello song, Let Him Dangle.

External link

• Internet Movie Database entry for the 1991 movie
• Judgement of Bingham LCJ in R v Bentley
• Opinions of the Lords of Appeal for Judgment in the Cause R v English