STRONG VOTE ON CAPITAL BILL

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30631, 23 December 1964, Page 13

STRONG VOTE ON CAPITAL BILL

(N.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) LONDON, Dec. 22.

Abolition of the death penalty in Britain is expected soon following a 2 to 1 vote in the House of Commons.

By a vote of 355-170, the House last night approved in principle a bill to end hanging as the penalty for murder. The 185-vote majority, including the votes of some 60 Conservatives, was far larger than expected. The vote came as a private bill authorised by Mr Sydney Silverman, a long - time advocate of abolition. The bill still faces detailed committee examination and has to pass through the House of Lords, which has always thrown out anti-hanging measures. But the Commons vote was so decisive that Parliamentary observers believed the Lords would either agree or the Commons would over-ride an adverse vote by the Upper House.

The end of the death penalty in Britain would leave France and Spain the only West European countries that execute murderers.

The hangman, Harry Allen, an executioner for more than 20 years, would make no comment on the vote in the Commons. He spent the evening of the debate reading stories to his grandchildren.

Two men are under sentence of death in Britain—a 26-year-old croupier convicted of killing during a hold-up, and a 20-year-old gangster convicted of killing twice in one year.

Although the Home Office announced yesterday that one of them would be executed on January 5, it was assumed that both now would be spared.

Officers Critical

Another double murderer, 38-year-old Frederick Allen Smith, escaped from London’s Wormwood Scrubbs gaol an hour before the Commons’ debate started. Prison officers were critical of the Commons’ decision. Their general secretary, F. C. Castell, said: “It seems clear that murderers already serving prison sentences can kill fellow prisoners or prison officers in the near future virtually with impunity since, as they will be already serving life sentence, it is difficult to see what further punishment can be imposed.”