The outbreak of World War 2 also meant that politicians had did not have time to abolish the death penalty. Nonetheless, the debate for the abolition of the death penalty continued after the war which can be seen as another factor influencing the abolition in 1969. Clark argues that ‘attitudes in Britain had been changed by World War II’, as people were horrified at the number of Jewish murders. Human rights became the focus of people around the world. Clark says that the ‘European Convention on Human Rights was adopted by Britain in 1950’ and this displays the changes in attitudes the political elite held towards the value of human life. These attitudes affected how MPs viewed the death penalty and by the 1960s most Conservatives and Britain’s elite supported the abolitionist view.
The increasing number of Mps adopting the abolitionist view meant that when Silverman, an influential individual in abolishing the death penalty, presented the Bill for the abolishment of the death penalty for five years, with the amendment ‘that abolition would expire in five years unless it was directly implemented again by both houses to keep it permanent’, in the House of Commons on December 1964 for the third time it was passed by an outstanding vote of ‘200 votes to 98’, as shown by Uschanov. Additionally, the House of Lords approved this Bill with a vote of ‘204 to 104’. Tomlinson says that ‘four and a half years into the experiment [the bill] was deemed a success and voted permanently on December 18, 1965’.
Silverman’s argument was predominantly based on the fact that there could be miscarriages of justice and he based his argument around the Timothy Evans case, a man who was hanged in 1950 for murdering his baby daughter, but was later discovered that the murderer was ‘almost certainly Evans’ neighbour, John Christie’. This is supported by Stearman in his book ‘The Death Penalty’ and further evidence meant that Timothy Evans was later granted a posthumous pardon in 1966. This illustrates how politicians were becoming against capital punishment.
The Derek Bentley case in 1953 also fuelled the abolitionist movement, as it questioned whether a person who had learning difficulties and mental issues should be put to death. Furthermore, it was not Bentley who shot the policeman, but his companion Christopher Craig who was under the age of sixteen. This questioned the fairness of the case. Bentley also received a posthumous pardon. These cases helped make a firm argument in favour of abolishing the death penalty and Silverman used these cases.
Two years later, in 1955, another case placed the death penalty issue to the fore of national attention- the Ruth Ellis case. Hodgkinson, in his book on Capital Punishment, displays how there was much public sympathy towards Ellis and he says that this ‘national trauma’ led to the formation of the ‘National Campaign for the abolition of the death penalty’ which later played a huge part in abolishing the death penalty. Moreover, Nigel Bushnell and Cathy Warren in their book portray how ‘a petition of 50,000 signatures was rejected by the home secretary’ which was made in an attempt to save Ellis.
This pressure from the public contributed to the abolishment of the death penalty and Stearman clearly states that ‘campaigners’ also ‘held demonstrations outside prisons before and during executions’ which shows how the extent of public sympathy. This case made politicians realize the negative impacts of the death penalty and, in order to restrict this, the homicide act was passed in 1957 to limit capital punishment in murder cases to five types of murder. This demonstrates how political views towards the death penalty were changing and that politicians were beginning to limit to use of the death penalty. Additionally, abolitionists of the death penalty and Silverman argued that the death penalty did not act as deterrence and the BBC ON THIS DAY article quotes from Home Secretary James Callaghan who said that ‘figures show that the murder rate is not soaring as a result of the abolition of capital punishment but remains remarkably stable’.
However, although support for abolition of the death penalty increased for Britain’s educated elite and some members of the public, public opinion remained high in support of the death penalty. Tomlinson displays how ‘as late as 1960, seventy three percent of the public’ said that they ‘would not support abolishment’. He also reveals how when the ‘five year trial period for abolition drew to a close in 1968, a majority still supported capital punishment’. In the ‘Crime and Punishment BBC 4 Documentary’, it was made clear that many people wanted the death penalty reinstated and that both ‘Myra Hindley and Ian Brady’ should have been ‘killed’ for their horrific murders. However, the public’s opinion was never asked for in the form of an official referendum or vote. This illustrates how politicians did not respond to public opinion.
To conclude, the death penalty was abolished for many reasons including the influence of Labour’s views, the effects of world war two, miscarriages of justice and cases when the death penalty was questioned as well as pressure from the public. The fact that the Homicide Act was passed in 1957 also reflects changing attitudes, as MPs began to limit the use of the death penalty. The posthumous pardons also portray how MPs were against what happened to Bentley and Evans and show their changed views that the death penalty was wrong. However, statistics show that the public supported and wanted the return of the death penalty, especially after horrendous crimes were committed such as the Moors Murders discovered after the abolishment of the death penalty in 1966. However, politicians had decided that the death penalty had no place in modern Britain and were responding to the mistakes that caused the deaths of innocent people such as Timothy Evans.