Found innocent of a crime 29 years after his death: Derek Bentley
Derek Bentley, died 28 January 1953, age 19, in Wandsworth Prison, London. A man who was hanged for the murder of a policeman (PC Miles), whose death occurred in the course of a burglary attempt on top of the roof of a warehouse. At the time, Christopher Craig, then aged 16, a friend and accomplice of Bentley, was accused of the actual murder, but was too young to be tried. Meaning Derek never actually pulled the trigger, not even the Spanish saying La ley del Talion “ojo por ojo, diente por diente” , can then defend his death, as the supporters of the death penalty are usually driven by the argument that if someone feels they have the justification to take another person's life they don't deserve their own.
So then there must have been such compelling defense, remarkably irrevocable, that the British justice system felt they had no other choice than to strap a fine line around his neck condemning him and his family to watch how this line became so straight no heartbeat was able to escape. 40 years it took, for a posthumous pardon from the government, 45 years to have his conviction overturned, to walk a free man.
And what was the most condemning piece of evidence police had against him? 5 words, “let him have it, Chris”. Bentley’s alleged instruction to Craig, both of them denied that Bentley had said these…
