Pioneering lawyer who campaigned for the abolition of the death penalty in the UK

November 2023

This post based on an obituary in the Guardian, 14 November 2023

Younger and foreign readers may not have heard of Derek Bentley who became a cause celebre in the UK and was one of the last people to be executed. He and an accomplice Christopher Craig were engaged in robbing a warehouse in Croydon, south London when they were spotted by a policeman who was shot by Craig. Bentley shouted ‘let him have it, Chris’ and these words were sufficient to see him hang. Of course these words are open to considerable interpretation since they can mean both shoot him or they can mean give him the gun. They were sufficient to see him hang.

Birnberg pursued the case relentlessly until in 1993 a royal pardon was issued revoking the death sentence because Bentley had been denied a fair trial and because of a partisan summing up by the judge Lord Goddard. His 30 year campaigning led, 30 years later in 1969, to the death penalty being abolished for nearly all crimes.

The case illustrated that where the penalty is used mistakes can never be rectified. It is one of the reasons Amnesty campaigns for the death penalty to be abolished around the world. Each month, we publish a report on the use of penalty around the world.