Derek Bentley Case - Trial

Trial

Bentley and Craig were charged with murder. They were tried by jury before the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Goddard, at the Old Bailey in London between 9 December and 11 December 1952. Christmas Humphreys, Senior Treasury Counsel, led for the prosecution.

At the time of the burglary attempt and Miles's death, murder was a capital offence in England and Wales. Minors under 18 were not sentenced to death: consequently, of the two defendants, only Bentley faced the death penalty if convicted. The doctrine of felony murder or "constructive malice" meant that a charge of manslaughter was not an option, as the "malicious intent" of the armed robbery was transferred to the shooting. Bentley's best defence was that he was effectively under arrest when Miles was killed. There were three principal points of contention at trial:

Firstly, the defence claimed there was ambiguity in the evidence as to how many shots were fired and by whom. A later forensic ballistics expert cast doubt on whether Craig could have hit Miles if he had shot at him deliberately: The fatal bullet was not found. Craig had used bullets of different under-sized calibres and the sawn-off barrel made it inaccurate to a degree of six feet at the range from which he fired.

Second, there was controversy over the existence and meaning of Bentley's alleged instruction to Craig, "let him have it, Chris". Craig and Bentley denied that Bentley had said the words while the police officers testified that he had said them. Further, Bentley's counsel argued that even if he had said the words, it could not be proven that Bentley had intended the words to mean the informal meaning of "shoot him, Chris" instead of the literal meaning of "give him the gun, Chris".

Third, there was disagreement over whether Bentley was fit to stand trial in light of his mental capacity. The Principal Medical Officer responsible was Dr Matheson and he referred Bentley to Dr. Hill, a psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital. Hill's report stated that Bentley was illiterate and of low intelligence, almost borderline retarded. However, Matheson was of the opinion that whilst agreeing that Bentley was of low intelligence, he was not suffering from epilepsy at the time of the alleged offence and he was not a "feeble-minded person" under the Mental Deficiency Acts. Matheson said that he was sane and fit to plead and stand trial. English law at the time did not recognise the concept of diminished responsibility due to retarded development, though it existed in Scottish law (it was introduced to England by the Homicide Act 1957). Criminal insanity – where the accused is unable to distinguish right from wrong – was then the only medical defence to murder. Bentley, while suffering severe debilitation, was not insane.

The jury took 75 minutes to decide that both Craig and Bentley were guilty of Miles' murder. Bentley was sentenced to death with a plea for mercy on 11 December 1952, while Craig was ordered to be detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure. He was eventually released in May 1963 after serving 10 years' imprisonment and has been a law abiding citizen ever since.

Bentley was originally scheduled to be hanged on 30 December 1952 but this was postponed to allow for an appeal. Bentley's lawyers filed appeals highlighting the ambiguities of the ballistic evidence, Bentley's mental age and the fact that he did not fire the fatal shot. Bentley's appeal was unsuccessful on 13 January 1953. Home Secretary David Maxwell Fyfe, after reading the Home Office psychiatric reports, refused to request clemency from the Queen, despite a petition signed by over 200 of his fellow MPs. Parliament was not allowed to debate Bentley's sentence until it had been carried out. The Home Office also refused Dr. Hill permission to make his report public.

At 9am on 28 January 1953, Derek Bentley was hanged for murder at Wandsworth Prison, London by Albert Pierrepoint. When it was announced the execution had been carried out, there were protests outside the prison and two people were arrested and later fined for damage to property.