A MURDERER THANKS HIS REGIMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 6, 6 July 1935, Page 25

A MURDERER THANKS HIS REGIMENT

Two remarkable letters were written the day before his execution hy John Stephenson Bainbridge, ;the "ten minute, alibi" murderer, says the "Daily Telegraph." Bainbridge, formerly a private in the Durham Light Infantry, was hanged at Durham prison for the murder on New Year's Eve of an aged solicitor's clerk at Bishop Auckland. In a letter to Lieutenant-Colonel J. A. Churchill, addressed to Blackdown Camp, Surrey, Bainbridge wrote:— "I am asking Mr. 'McKeag (Bainbridge's solicitor) to write to you expressing my sincere apology for the notoriety I have been instrumental in directing to the Durham Light Infantry. I noticed your remarks in my discharge book—that up to December 31, 1934, my conduct was good. ,■ "In spite of the verdict of the Assize Court and of the Appeal Court I can assure you that my conduct was equally good on and since that date. "I have much to thank the Durham Light Infantry for, and that is the reason for this letter—an expression of gratitude. As a private soldier I became almost a gentleman. I discovered I could be useful, too, which was the most surprising thing I learned since enlisting. , ''Most of all, I thank the Durham Light Infantry for making me" man enough to face unafraid any punish-1: ment ifi store for me, and whether my I <

sentence be a sticky death or life imprisonment, the Durham Light Infantry will be, if not proud, unashamed of the way in which one of their number faces and accepts it." A postscript to the letter, evidently .written after Bainbridge had received news that he was to die, read: "I have now learned that the maximum penalty is to be enforced. I shall not forget that until recently I was of the Durham Light Infantry." Bainbridge also. wrote to Private J. McNally, the man to whom it was alleged he posted a packet of 35 £1 notes, three of which were stained with blood. In this letter he stated: — "Dear Mac, —It has come to my ears that you have been doing unnecessary worrying on my account. Mr. Justice Goddard complimented you at my trial, and so do I now. You did the only possible thing a soldier could do —so quit the worry. "Today I am going before' another Judge, and the case will be retdrned with a vastly different verdict,' but before I go I want you to.know you are still the same Mac that I have very much liked since we enlisted. "Yours till. the final 'Stand easy' command.—Ginger." On the very morning of his death Bainbridge sat down calmly and wrote a final letter to his solicitor, thanking I Mr. McKeag for everything he had done on his behalf.