Evans Pardoned

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31195, 20 October 1966, Page 17

Evans Pardoned

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON. October 19. A posthumous pardon was today granted to Timothy Evans, hanged 16 years ago for a murder which an inquiry judge found he probably did not commit.

Queen Elizabeth’s formal assent to pardon was announced in Parliament this afternoon by the Home Secretary, Mr Roy Jenkins. Loud cheers greeted the announcement in the House of Commons today.

The Evans case, centre of a long controversy over the death penalty and British justice in general, sprang into the news again last week when a High Court judge reported that Evans probably did not murder his baby daughter—the crime for which he went to the gallows. Mr Justice Brabin found that the likely killer was the mass-murderer, John Christie —hanged three years later—who lived with the Evans family. But the Judge also said it seemed likely Evans did kill his wife.

As soon as the judge’s decision was published last week, the author and Liberal

politician. Ludovic Kennedy —who led a long campaign to establish Evans’s innocence—said he and other leaders of the anti-hanging movement would press hard for a pardon.

Evans’ 65-year-old mother. Mrs Thomasina Probert, issued a statement later saying she was “very thankful that everything had been cleared up."

“1 want to thank everybody who has helped in my fight to clear my son’s name. I always knew my Timothy was innocent. He is already buried in consecrated ground and now I can rest in peace."