SENSATIONAL REPRIEVE

Taranaki Daily News, 11 October 1928, Page 14

SENSATIONAL REPRIEVE

ELEVENTH HOUR DECISION BRIGHTON MURDER CASE, EXCITING PRISON SCENE. The eleventh-hour reprieve of three young men who were lying under sentence of death for the murder of Mr. F. E. Smith at Brighton on April 14, caused a sensation in England last month. The main features of the case were cabled at the time. Additional details are given in the London papers. The three reprieved men are Percival Leonard Taylor, Janies Weaver and George Thomas Donovan. The Home Secretary, Sir William Joynson-Hicke, had previously announced that he could not see his way to recommend a reprieve. The following official statement was issued on the night of August 14 from the Home Office:—

“The Home Secretary returned to London to-day in order to give further consideration to the cases of the three men, Donovan, Taylor and Weaver, who were convicted at the last Sussex Assizes of tlm murder of Mr. Friend Earnest Smith. After a most anxious review of all the circumstances, the Home Secretary decided to rescind his previous decision ami has advised the commutation of the sentence of death in the ease of each prisoner to one of penal servitude for life. The men were to have been executed at 8 p.m. on August 15, Taylor at Pentonville Prison and Weaver and Donovan at Wandsworth Prison. The news came with dramatic suddenness. All-hope of a reprieve had been dispelled by the Home Secretary’s letter (,<’ the solicitors of the condemned men stating that he saw no grounds for interfering with the sentence. The men had been visited by their relatives for the last time, and arrangements for the executions were complete. The executioners had arrived at the prisons and the Under-Sheriff had satisfied himself that everything- was in readiness.

In the meantime the Home Secretary had been busy. He attended a Council held by the King at Buckingham Palace at 11 a.m., but before this he had an andience with His Majesty. Sir William then returned to the Home Office, where he held long consultations, after which he finally decided to advise the King to revoke the order for execution and substitute penal servitude for life. News of the reprieve came on the night before the morning fixed for the execution, while several of Taylor’s relatives were in Pentonville Prison. A forlorn party consisting of Mrs. Taylor, his mother, his young wife and his sister, had gone from Brighton about mid-day by motor car to say their last farewells. Taylor’s sister, Cissie, described what happened in the prison when the news of the reprieve was heard. “We had said what we thought to be our last good-bye to Percy, and he had given a white rose and a carnation to his wife, and a white rose to his mother. They were procured for him by the prison chaplain at Percy’s special request. After we had said bood-bye Percy stood in the doorway with his hands clasped to his forehead! He seemed more dead than alive. He said: ‘There are only 14 more hours.’

“Wo were all on the verge of breaking down, when suddenly the door opened and the prison governor walked in. He asked us to go into a separate room <nd wait a few moments. We waited for 20 minutes before he again appeared and took us back to Percy. “Then the Governor said in a quiet voice: ‘AU the boys are reprieved.’ We did not know what to do, but at last Percy shouted and then broke down. He danced round the room, clung to his mother, hugged his wife, and nearly suffocated me. It was like a dead man coming to life. He asked how Weaver and Donovan were, but he seemed far too busy in clinging to his wife to say much. All he did say was: ‘I knew it all along. I am innocent.’ ”