SERIOUS POLICE VIEW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26748, 17 April 1948, Page 7

SERIOUS POLICE VIEW

SUSPENSION OF DEATH PENALTY INCREASE IN CRIME FEARED N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent LONDON, Apl. 15. Senior London police officers make no secret of their fear that the suspension of the death penalty may lead to a serious increase in crimes of violence. The number of criminals carrying arms has been causing grave anxiety among police officers. The recent Antiquis case, when two men shot down a passer-by in a London street while making their escape after a robbery were executed, and a third member of the gang was ordered to be detained at his Majesty’s pleasure, was stated to have had a salutary effect, but the police believe this will promptly be removed by the decision of the House of Commons. Home Secretary’s Approach The Home Secretary, Mr Chuter Ede, was also at pains to stress this aspect of the matter during the debate when he pointed out that the number of murders in Britain had increased from 97 in 1938 to 134 last year. “We have in this country—and it is a matter for pride—only a small unarmed police force,” said Mr Ede. “They are faced at the moment with the emergence of the armed gangster criminal type. They have the right to expect that while they go unarmed we shall make it quite clear that the criminal who uses arms or violence to evade the police shall be treated with the utmost severity. It is almost impossible to go through a week in the metropolis now without some case in which the police have been subjected to very great personal violence by criminals. It is only a matter of luck in many cases whether death occurs or not.” Protection for Prison Staffs Sir John Anderson, himself a previous Home Secretary and at one time civil service head of the Home Office, likewise stressed this point of view. He also drew attention to the necessity for protecting prison staffs against violent criminals. He had once visited Broadmoor and seen a man there who could not be approached by a single warder or another prisoner without striking out at them. People like this could not possibly be allowed among the ordinary prison population. Sir John angrily rebutted a suggestion by Mr R. T. Paget (Lab., Northampton) that Edith Thompson, who was sentenced to death and

executed for complicity in the murder of her husband in 1923. was innocent. Sir John, who was at the Home Office at the time of the trial of Thompson and her associate, Frederick Bywaters, raised his voice almost to a shout when he replied to Mr Paget, “There is no room for doubt about the part she played,” he said. “There may be degrees of murder compared with that of Bywaters, but there was never a clearer case of murder than hers. The reference to this famous murder case, which evoked bitter controversy at the time, has recalled the fact that the senior hangman, John Ellis, who carried out the execution of Mrs Thompson, afterwards tried to take his own life, and although prevented on the first occasion, finally committed suicide eight years later. His wife, whom he tried to kill before taking his own life, said afterwards: He never recovered from hanging Edith Thompson.” Mr Beverley Baxter, who was one of the few Conservatives supporting the abolition of the death penalty, also recalled the case of Thompson and Bywaters in the debate. He said that after the execution of Thompson two of the warders who assisted at her hanging came to see him. Their faces were not human, he said. “ They were like people from another world. Somehow they had had to get Edith Thompson to the gallows after she had disintegrated as a human being.”

Killer Strikes Again One immediate reaction to the decision was an angry outburst in the Lancashire town of Farnworth, .where the police are at present trying to track down the killer of an 11-year-old boy The father of the boy and parents of several other children who have been attacked in the same area, allegedly by the same man, all protested when told that if the killer is found he will not nex t The decision means that for the next five years the penalty for murder will be life imprisonment, which means a maximum term of 15 years. Immediately after last night’s division in the House of Commons, Sir Gifford Fox (Con., Henley) gave notice that he will ask the Home Secretary whether, in view of the suspension of the death penalty, he will give an assurance that all police will be armed with live ammunition weapons.