Fred Dinenage: Murder Casebook - Season 1, Episode 7 - Derek Bentley | Forensic Files

the Derek Bentley case is one of the most tragic and staining cases in the history of our criminal justice system
it was the single biggest nail in the coffin of capital punishment in this country I never got to meet an uncle
that actually idolized I miss not meeting that person on the evening of the 2nd of november 1952
gunshots echoed around Croydon in South London a policeman had been killed and 19 year-old Derek Bentley stood accused
of his murder but he hadn't pulled the trigger the culprit was actually Bentley's friend
Christopher Craig the legendary line let him habit has been immortalized on the big screen and in books but did Bentley
really utter those words and what happened to his companion Christopher Craig [Music]
I'm Fred Danish and I've been reporting on serious crimes as a journalist for more than 40 years it's estimated that
approximately 38,000 people were murdered in Britain throughout the 20th century I'm investigating the most
notorious of these crimes to separate the fact from fiction like the stories surrounding the infamous case of Derek
Bentley it started as a night of petty theft involving two teenagers but ended up with the murder of a police officer
with Derek Bentley hanging for the crime it's now one of the most famous cases of
the 20th century he was sentenced to death without even pulling the trigger of the gun that killed PC Sidney miles
ultimately this case played a significant part in the abolition of the death penalty Derek William Bentley was
born in 1933 in Blackfriars London he spent his early childhood growing up amongst the rubble and bombings of World
War two at the age of four he fell from a lorry and it's believed this irreversibly damaged his brain stunting
his mental growth and causing epilepsy someone who knows all about Bentley's life and family is his niece Maria
Bentley Dingwall tell me about Derek Bentley what sort of lad he was fun-loving dog animals
absolutely he's like a straight anything go past the door it was in the house really close to my mom he's his sister
iris because of his mental disabilities he's middle-aged I think he was just a great guy yeah I'm so sad I didn't
really know him but I met him and knowing through what mom told me about humans you know Nana and Grandin in the
photographs and everywhere else the war was a traumatic time for the close-knit Bentley family three family members
including Derek's 13 year old sister were killed just three days into the Blitz on one fateful night in 1944
Bentley himself was buried alive when a German incendiary bomb hit the house in southern he was only 11 at the time
[Music] the constant moving of home and his medical care fragmented Bentley's education he found school difficult and
failed his 11 plus and Derrick Benkei at school did he struggled at school very much so because of his mental disability
you know because of the four that he had mental age was eight and sometimes he just couldn't cope with the classes so
mummy used to sit with him in the class isn't Norbury and just you know to calm him down so he'd get old me's work but
before just completely took everything away from him amazing not quite the way he was it was from this point that
Bentley began to change the once innocent boy began to get into trouble with the law in 1948 Bentley committed
two minor offences theft and attempted break-in and entering he was then sentenced to three years at
Kingswood improve school where he met educational psychologist humor he was quite small and completely illiterate he
could only sign his name with a cross he was teased a great deal and he didn't like being teased at all the profile
that I made of him showed that he was a very much a low average nonverbal IQ seventy and was what they called in
those days ESN education is abnormal Kingswood approves school ran a strict military-style regime Hugh Moore was
popular with the pupils because he refused to carry out beatings he was known as slasher because of his haircut
at the time I had to go so frequently to the mr. Adams office I had teacher the head teacher the principal and witness
the beatings with Derek particularly he was beaten for these very minor offences
and I looked so worried when I came with him he said to me he said don't worry / he said I've got corns behind me
but it doesn't worry me at all he said no problem as far as i concerned Bentley was released from Kingswood approved
school in 1950 aged 18 and spent the next six months as a recluse the world of work was to prove another hurdle
teenagers growing up during the war had a tough time of things it was a case of join the military or get a job post war
led to greater opportunity for freedom and independence I'm about to meet a man who at the age of 29 became the youngest
prison governor in England and dealt with some of our most hardened criminals professor David Wilson is one of
Britain's leading criminologists England in the 1950s after the war if you were a
teenager what would it have been like after the war being a teenager you're thrown out of school at fifteen sixteen
you're into the world of work in 1939 something like three hundred and twenty fourteen to seventeen year olds had been
convicted of serious crime murder manslaughter rape and robbery but by the early 1950s that number has quadrupled
and so people are beginning to focus on this generation of young people after the war being anxious about what to do
with them being anxious about the kinds of crimes they're committing supported by his family the boy with the low IQ
did his best to put his days of crime behind him Bentley has no luck throughout his life we have to be as
simple as that after he leaves the approved school he initially tries to get work as a furniture remover he hurts
his back so he has to give that job up he then works as a refuse collector he's not able to do that he ends up as a road
sweeper when his National Service Corps lap papers arrive through the letterbox he goes along for the test they realized
that he's functionally illiterate he's an IQ of 66 to 70 seven he's got problems with his
epilepsy so this is a young man who's going nowhere fast Bentley's failure to be accepted into
society left him frustrated he found himself mixing with the wrong sort of company he fell in with the local gangs
that were going the rounds and doing small jobs or big jobs and just fell in with with them and went along with them
but there was no sense a leader well he was 18 Bentley made friends with Christopher
Craig he was three years younger than Bentley and they both had the same learning difficulty they were illiterate
Bentley quickly developed an admiration for his new friend Craig sadly there was
a person that was in the era called Christopher Craig who I had two boys that he'd lead around like anything one
was my uncle Derek we tried to stop Craig coming near us now I found me my grandfather did my
going to the police station and they can speech the family saying we don't want him around here he was sadly easily led
because of his mental disability knows he was tall you're strong course Craig wanted him because Craig was Chester
yeah a nasty character and I wanted a sixth thought soft a that you could twist around his finger little could the
Bentley's foresee the role Christopher Craig would go on to play in their son Derek's life 16 year old Craig was from
a respectable middle-class family and the youngest of eight his ambition was to become a qualified gunsmith however
on leaving school he ended up working at a garage in Camberwell Christopher Craig
though has what we would now call dyslexia so like Bentley he's functionally illiterate so people read
stories to him he's a Fanta cyst he likes comic books he likes going to the cinema and he's completely obsessed with
guns he's somebody though that's going to really say to Bentley who's rather more
timid and feeble here are the kinds of things that we should be getting up to and so that's where this kind of
poisonous relationship develops between Craig and Bentley after the war guns and
weapons were easily accessible many had been left or discarded by the military Craig had a fascination with guns and
kept an arsenal of weapons in his room he had already been convicted for possessing firearms without a license
they carried guns because it makes them feel like a man it makes them feel powerful it makes them feel in control
and often of course these young men don't have power in control in other aspects of their lives and carrying a
gun gives them that sense of who they'd like to be he wants to be James Cagney that's his role model and that's why he
was so obsessed with guns and that's why he carried a gun because it was the only
time that he felt in charge in control and that people wouldn't laugh at him it was on the 2nd of November 1952 that
Derek Bentley and Christopher Craig's rebellious friendship took a sinister turn
it would lead to the murder of a police officer and ultimately the hanging of Derek Bentley I'm Fred Danish and I'm
investigating the famous case of Derek Bentley known of course for the memorable line let him have it it would
lead to the most heinous of crimes the death of a policeman for which Bentley would Hank what really happened that
fateful night Derek Bentley's life was to change forever on the evening of the second of
November 1952 he went to the Astoria cinema where his sister iris worked but he'd left feeling unwell when iris
returned home Bentley had gone out she had no idea he'd gone to meet up with his friend and local bad boy Christopher
Craig the teenagers were bored Restless and out for trouble it's thought that Bentley had no idea that his friend
Craig was carrying a loaded revolver as they walk the streets of London Benedict's bernburg the now retired
human rights lawyer has been described as a pioneer radical lawyer and a champion of civil liberties his passion
for justice sparked his interest in Bentley's story Christopher Craig who was only 16 at the time had a burning
hatred of the police bill Bentley the father of Derek was very concerned as was the mother that young Derek should
not have anything to do with with Craig Craig was bad news on a night out together Bentley and Craig was spotted
just after 9 p.m. entering Barlow and Parker's a confectionary warehouse in Croydon Craig
was the leading spirit in all this and initially the idea was to break into a butcher shop but when they got to the
butcher shop the light was on so they didn't go there Craig then a little further down the road Tamworth
Road just around the corner here but there was a wholesale confectioner's factory in the road and there was a
two-story building with a flat booth at the top despite their efforts to be inconspicuous the teenagers were being
watched a lady by the name of mrs. ware had been looking out of her daughter's bedroom when she spotted to use walking
along the road acting suspiciously she noticed them because they shied away from the lights of traffic and pulled
their hats over their eyes she then watched as they jumped the gates into the yard of a private warehouse it was
then that mrs. ware told her husband who ran to the nearest phone box and called
the police no one could have predicted the events that followed the boys climbed their way up a drainpipe onto
the flat roof of the warehouse unaware that the police were not far behind them a detective Constable plainclothes
officer Fairfax managed to get up onto the roof followed a little later by two or three others when Fairfax got to the
roof he saw the to use Craig and Bentley they were huddled together near a lift shaft which was some distance away from
where Fairfax was d/s Fairfax shouted at the boys to give themselves up but the two teenagers weren't willing to come
quietly according to the police evidence at any rate Craig shouted out to them if you want us
[ __ ] well come and get us taking them at their word DS Fairfax charged at the pair he grabbed the person nearest to
him Bentley the teenager gave himself up to the police officer but Craig his partner in crime wasn't going to
surrender instead he pulled out the revolver that he'd been concealing what resulted was a
tense standoff between him and the police years later what happened on the roof is still subject to much debate
some of the statements that are later made by Bentley in court and the police don't correspond but seemingly according
to the police what happens at that point is that sergeant Fairfax who's pushing Bentley forward because Craig's
obviously got a gun at which point it's alleged by three the three police officers that Bentley says let him have
it Chris allegedly those words were to start a chain of events that would leave one policeman injured and another dead
Christopher Cray began firing and Diaz Fairfax was shot in the shoulder Craig had been only six feet away
Fairfax then grabbed hold of Bentley and used him as a human shield now this is really crucial Fred let him have it
Chris is clearly an ambiguous statement which might imply that Bentley is inciting Craig to fire at the police
albeit it could also be interpreted as give your gun to the police officer now this is going to be crucial at the trial
Derek Bentley was arrested while Christopher Craig was holding back the police with his loaded revolver soon
armed reinforcements were on hand uniformed police officer Sydney George Myles took the lead as he burst onto the
rooftop Craig fired off another round the bullet struck pcs Sydney miles between the eyes
killing him instantly Christopher Craig had murdered a police officer the sad irony was that the victim was not a
stranger to Bentley and Cray Sydney Mars was a friend of our family he was our local peace officer he knew how we felt
about Christopher Craig who actually been speaking to to Sydney about yeah what can we do about Christopher Craig
and how can we stop this from happening and you know he's a nasty boy he's got guns and you know the whole neighborhood
were trying to sort this this situation out with Craig PC Sydney miles his death didn't stop
Christopher Craig a gunfight broke out between Craig and the wounded DS Fairfax Fairfax now armed with a revolver
ordered Craig to drop the gun both fired shots Fairfax fired twice and then rushed at Craig Craig fired but no
shots came see he yelled it's empty Craig then turned and jumped off the roof the shooting had lasted twenty
minutes but the drama didn't stop there Craig fell over 20 feet landing on a green house he fractured his spine and
left forearm and broke his breastbone unable to move he was arrested Derek Bentley who'd been held by the police
during the shootout was taken to the station for questioning when he would have been very frightened about the
whole thing being of such low intelligence he would not clearly have understood what was going on whilst
going to the police station it's alleged by the police that Bentley says he had a
gun I told him not to use it he's killed one of your blokes and so forth and so forth everything that would
suggest that he knew that Craig had gone armed on the breaking-and-entering Bentley's family had no idea of the
events their son had been involved in that evening mom and stayed up late that night because Derek had gone out with
his friend next thing the door bell went and pleas came in and said that the Derek's been arrested for murder and it
wasn't two afterwards that it we learnt from the case that it wasn't direct that
shot a police officer so we had to wait for a journalist to tell us this information after hours of questioning
Derek Bentley signed a statement in it he denied all knowledge of Craig having a gun and took no responsibility for the
murder of PC Myles nevertheless he was charged with murder alongside Christopher Craig I don't like
pain in lily-white I've always said that if you're they charged him with being on
private property and attempted burglary and that would have been a fair assessment of what happened that night
given the fact he is a moral reasoning of a four-year-old Derek Bentley probably didn't even understand a word
that they were claiming that he had just signed his name to and of course that statement signed albeit misspelled is
going to again be one of the key prosecution items in the court case Bentley and Craig's visit to the
confectionary warehouse had turned sour one policeman injured another dead Craig's Al Capone fantasies had come to
life but this was Croydon not Hollywood it wasn't going to have a glamorous ending and it would be Derek Bentley who
would end up paying the ultimate price for the crime I'm Fred Dynegy and I'm investigating one of the most
controversial cases in British legal history that of Derek Bentley and Christopher Craig one policeman injured
another dead what started out as a petty theft had turned into a deadly shootout
Bentley and Craig had to face the consequences of their actions and it would lead to one of the biggest
miscarriages of justice in the 20th century on the evening of November the 2nd 1952 Christopher Craig had shot dead
PC Sidney miles on a rooftop of a Croydon warehouse both he and his accomplice Derek Bentley were arrested
and charged with murder but just how guilty was Bentley how could he be charged murder though when
he wasn't the one who fired the shot well here's one of those peculiarities of English law if Bentley knows that
Christopher Craig is carrying a gun and is aware of that fact he is an accomplice even though he himself didn't
carry a gun but it gets worse than that the prosecution was able to prove through that phrase let him have it
Chris that there was incitement so not only was he Bentley an accomplice he according to the prosecution incites
Craig to fire the weapon which is going to lead to one police officer being killed another police officer being shot
so in the eyes of English law he's just as guilty as Craig even though he wasn't
actually carrying the weapon and indeed was under arrest at the time that the police constable was killed on the 9th
of December 1952 just one month after the murder of PC Myles Derek Bentley and Christopher Craig stood trial for murder
at the Old Bailey they both pleaded not guilty the punishment for murder was hanging however at just 16 the gunman
Craig could only face imprisonment because of his age but for Bentley age 19 a guilty verdict would mean death it
is the doctrine of a joint enterprise the law at the time and indeed in a sense still is that if two or more
people go on an expert to commit a serious offense a felony and go intending to resist arrest by force
and somebody's killed in the process as a homicide then they are both equally responsible for the actions even though
one of them may not have been responsible for the death when the family realized that he was being
charged with murder even though he'd not fired the shot himself what was what was
the reaction Wow yeah we've got great British justice you know he'll be proved innocent in court
the trial lasted two and a half days Derek Bentley's defense lawyers gave no opening speech and no one other than
Bentley was called to the stand to give evidence on his behalf we didn't have money we can't afford a private sister
like the Craig's could we had state representation and the state representation didn't want to anger the
judge his own counsel took the view that he ought to have hand and if your own counsel feels that you're not there's
not much inclination to defend a person like that it was a that in itself was one of the great shortcomings nanion
grandad weren't allowed to give evidence regarding his state of mind his his and
what sort of person he was like either none of this was allowed to happen in a 2 and a half day trial they wanted one
conviction one conviction only and that was of guilty the prosecution's aim was to prove that on the night of the murder
Bentley knew Craig was carrying a gun and furthermore that he'd encouraged him to shoot by shouting the infamous words
let him have it therefore making Bentley complicit of the crime and guilty of murder the statements Bentley gave
during his arrest were used against him in the trial years later it's believed these statements may not have been the
exact words of Bentley a man with an estimated mental age of 8 dr. John Olsen is one of the leading
experts in forensic linguistics John forensic linguistics explain please forensic linguistics is where language
interfaces with the law it has been very important especially in cases like Derek
Bentley Birmingham sakes the Guildford for a number of analyses have been done of statements which were supposed to
have been produced by suspects or witnesses and some of them have turned out to be in some respects somewhat
suspect in court Bentley denied knowing that Craig had a gun however in his statement of the
police Bentley appears to indicate that his accomplice was armed on the night of
the killing his first reference to the gun is as a definite article so he says I did not know he was going to use the
gun and it would appear that he said that completely spontaneously so first of all it's a spontaneous negative I did
not know and second of all no reference to the gun up until now so why not a gun but instead we have their gun the
point about statements at that time was that they were supposed to be taken according to judge's rules they were
supposed to be dictated and in fact the police officers giving evidence at Bentley's trial stated that he had just
simply dictated it to them which I believe to be completely impossible I think you have to be reasonably literate
to be able to dictate in the early 1950s there would be heightened passions a police officers being killed the police
would be wanting to arrest somebody for it they'd be fully aware that Christopher Craig was only 16 Derek
Bentley was there for the culpable one we've got a young man a feeble-minded young man effectively being verbals
signing his name de RK and signing effectively his death warrant the crux of Bentley's defense was that
when the fatal shot was fired he'd been under arrest but when questioned he appeared to contradict this revealing
that he'd been free and in a position to run away at any time he believed it would help his cause if the jury learned
that he'd stayed with the police by his own volition Bentley didn't understand that being under arrest no longer made
him an accomplice what the trial didn't disclose is that if if there's a joint enterprise it's an agreement which can
be terminated and it had terminated before the shot was fired at at PC miles that shot was not fart until about 15
minutes after Bentley had been detained so he was it arrested he was under arrest at the time and had been through
about 15 minutes when PC miles was shot when someone like Bentley who is illiterate takes the stand how confusing
is it for them incredibly difficult because barristers when when they are examining somebody or cross-examining
somebody they don't they're not interested in the truth they're interested in a version of events so the
prosecution has a narrative of the of the whole crime they want to put that narrative to the jury they're going to
be focusing on questions which give them the correct answers to put that narrative over here the narrative was
very well established by the statement and of course by the fact that Bentley as you say made such a poor witness he
was really unable to answer questions in a satisfactory way he contradicted himself he appeared to be untruthful and
deceitful which may not have be in the case at all he just simply wasn't able to put his point over very well indeed
the most damning evidence in the trial came from the three police officers who'd all been on the roof
at that time they stated that just before Craig started firing Bentley had shouted out let him have it Chris
both lads denied that those words were ever said and it's very curious as those words was also used in an earlier case
about 12 years before where a police officer had been killed in a rather similar event and the suggestion is that
they simply lifted the words from their earlier case and used them as a way to ensure that Bentley went down he always
said when he passed by my grandfather did you say those words and he said no father I didn't never did what there's
one trait that we haven't in a Bentley family we can't lie it's just something that's you know so Derek never could
tell lies anyway so he just wasn't able to Lord Chief Justice Rainer Goddard summed up the trial by asking the jury
if they considered the police to be conspicuous liars willing to lie away the life of a young boy the judge had
talked to rhetorically about these brave police officers would have fabricated evidence against someone he was in
flaming the jury - to convict on the 11th of December 1952 the jury took just 75 minutes to decide that both Derek
Bentley and Christopher Craig would guilty for the murder of PC Sidney miles Craig at 16 was too young to Hank
Bentley was 19 and therefore sentenced to death with Bentley found guilty of murder the judge had no choice but to
send him to the gallows still Maria believes the judge had been biased against her uncle no Chief Justice
Goddard just went for the full sentence penalty because he wanted an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth that was you
know they couldn't get the boy that did the murder so they got the next best thing
my uncle I'm Fred Danish and I'm investigating one of the 20th century's most contentious murders in 1952 PC
Sidney miles had been killed in a shootout on a warehouse roof in Croydon Derek Bentley and Christopher Craig had
been found guilty of his murder the gunman Craig had escaped the noose because he was only 16 but 19 year-old
Derek Bentley had been sentenced to death on the 11th of December 1952 inside a packed Old Bailey Lord Chief
Justice Goddard told Christopher Craig he was the more guilty of the two teenagers the judge sentenced Craig to
10 years naming him as one of the most dangerous criminals in Britain when that verdict was announced and the death
penalty was announced what was the reaction of the family disbelief yeah how could this happen I
haven't shot anybody it's he was under arrest for 15 minutes before the fatal shot was fired his part in any action
that night has finished had ended so how could this be right even after the sentencing by Lord Chief Justice Goddard
the Bentley family hoped for a reprieve his case was presented to the Court of Appeal on the 13th of January 1953 but
it was quickly dismissed the sentence of death remained but the 19 year olds plight was gaining national attention in
the media protests marches began in support of Derek Bentley there are petitions in the country the newspapers
are on back of the case and one of my personal heroines mrs. LC van der Elst who's a a real character a real death
penalty anti-death-penalty campaigner is banging on the doors banging on the gates of ones were prison demanding to
be let in to see the governor to protect this boy who she says is going to be murdered by the state did the family
visit Derek when he was in prison as much as they could I think it was mostly everyday momma nanogram dad and he would
ask how about the door key is how Judy is and have the cats and other chickens behaving themselves is you know just
things to keep him normal there was a big thick screen of glass between them and you know my mother was miss
frustrated over it she all she wanted to do is grab a gym break that screen and so she could just Harker brother and she
she's always regret not breaking that glass the day she died Bentley's final hope of avoiding execution lay with the
Home Secretary Sir David Maxwell Fyfe Fife could advise the sovereign to exercise the royal prerogative of mercy
changing a sentence of death by hanging to one of lifetime imprisonment in the first half of the 20th century reprieves
were common three out of four people who were recommended mercy by the jury had their death penalty quashed in favor of
a life sentence the Home Secretary saw in allowing the execution of Derek Bentley a way of sending out a message
to other young people who might be convinced that they would be able to get away with committing this type of crime
the appeals failed no reprieve came at 9:00 a.m. on the 28th of January 1953 a crowd of around 500 gathered outside
Wandsworth prison and sang the Lord is my shepherd and abide with me Derek William Bentley aged just 19 had been
hanged that there was a clock on the mantelpiece in the sitting room don't mean it's trapline o'clock and
nanny just collapsed because someone had just killed her son from a young vibrant nun from pictures
I've got to her she aged fifty years in a matter of moments Derek Bentley was hanged for a murder he didn't physically
commit he was the first and only person in the 20th century to be executed in Britain for being an accomplice after
serving 10 years imprisonment Christopher Craig was released in 1963 to start a new life many believe this
case was one of the contributing factors that led to the permanent abolition of the death penalty in 1969 it was highly
significant because the abhorrence that people felt at what had happened to this
poor lad was the single biggest factor in securing the abolition of of hanging in this country but this was of no
consequence to Bentley's family led by Derek's dad bill and Derek's sister iris a group was formed to clear his name it
was from the back room of three bedroom semi-detached house and it was mama and my grandfather that were there to
staunch bull elephants that would rally rally everybody around Janus ring us up or we'd have them we think we might have
another lead or would ring up yourselves and they'd come out and do a story on it
and so we can get into the home office so it took over the house the lives of my family I first got involved I think
to the Bentley's in about in the 1970s or there abouts I had always been determined ultimately to take up the
Derek's case which I thought was a gross miscarriage of justice after 40 years of work and numerous
Appeals iris Bentley and her legal team made their first breakthrough in July 1993
Derek Bentley received a royal posthumous pardon for the sentence of death passed upon him however under
English law this did not overturn his conviction for murder the law still recognized that Bentley was guilty of
the killing of PC Sydney Myles I myself wanted more than the part I wanted to show that in fact Derek had been wrongly
convicted in the first place that he in fact was an innocent man who didn't need
a pardon because he was innocent he should never should never have been convicted it was like bashing head
against a brick wall they just what didn't want to admit that they were wrong that they've done this awful horrific
crime to a person that was under arrest 15 minutes and I only had a mental age of 8 new evidence was brought forward to
support the legal battle for a pardon one of the main floors of the case involved Bentley's statements which may
not have been his own words when you look at Derek Bentley statements can you tell how those statements were put
together that's a very interesting question and quite a complex question it's evident that some of it was put
together as a result of question and answer so we have it we have a sequence where where he says there was a little
iron gate at the side full-stop Chris then jumped over and I followed full-stop up to there and Chris had not
said anything full stop very short sentences this indicates to me and to other linguists
who've looked at this that very likely this was from a series of questions so what did you do when you got there well
Chris looked in the window okay and what did he see there was an eye engage at the side if this isn't his spontaneous
language then courts cannot depend on this as being his version of events in that case a jury would not be in title
to find such a person guilty the Bentley families fight for justice also uncovered new witnesses one was a police
officer who was on the roof on the night of the shooting he denied the Delic Bentley had ever shouted let him have it
Chris his statement hadn't been read out at the original court case and his police notebook vanished from the
evidence on the 30th of July 1998 more than four decades after Derek Bentley's death the court of appeal quashed the
murder conviction the Lord Chief Justice Lord Bingham criticized the original judge's summation saying the trial was
such as to deny the appellant that fair trial which is the birthright of every British citizen and do you remember
obviously you do the day when the acquittal came through I felt justified in my actions I that we'd achieved what
arias had always set out to achieve to get her brother's name cleared it was a terrific sense of elation but of course
it was a great day for British justice - despite iris Bentley's 44 year battle to
clear her brother's name she was never to hear the final decision iris died in January 1997
I had to remember to take the bottle of champagne out of the fridge that my grandfather had bought in 1952 because
we were going to win the appeal and we didn't so he he kept it and I was the one that opened it on behalf of the rest
of my family on that morning beautiful sunshine and you may not have seen the wrong camera but they were there with us
starik mum nanny the whole family to celebrate justice Derek Bentley's execution raised
questions about how we ensure fair trials and sentencing and it started people thinking about it not just in the
House of Commons but everyday people that it could happen to anybody that if your child had a disability
whatever else was just in the wrong place and the government didn't want to listen to your arguments then you've had
it you've got no comeback people know what's fair people know what's just people know what's right and the
execution of Derek Bentley was neither fair just or right the events of the second of November 1952 are tragic and
led to the hanging of an innocent man but of course we have to remember it wasn't just Derek Bentley who suffered
PC Sydney miles was shot and killed in the most tragic of circumstances so the case begs the question how do we make
sure that punishment fits the crime [Music]

Brief Summary

Derek Bentley was wrongfully executed for a murder he didn't commit, highlighting flaws in the legal system and mental health considerations.

Key points

The Tragic Bentley Case. The Derek Bentley case is a pivotal moment in British legal history, marking a significant shift in attitudes towards capital punishment.
The Controversial Phrase. The phrase 'Let him have it, Chris!' became central to the trial, raising questions about Bentley's intent.
A Night of Crime. On November 2, 1952, a petty theft escalated into a deadly confrontation with police, leading to tragedy.
Derek Bentley's Trial. The trial lasted two and a half days with no proper defense for Bentley.
Execution of Derek Bentley. Derek Bentley was executed for a crime he didn't commit, raising questions about justice.
Abolition of the Death Penalty. Bentley's case contributed to the abolition of the death penalty in Britain in 1969.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He was sentenced to death without even pulling the trigger.

Highlighting the injustice faced by Derek Bentley.

1:59WatchOct 4, 2019

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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