UK Death Penalty - would you like it returned?

GrannyGravy13

In some really dreadful indisputable cases my heart says yes.

Fortunately my head quickly takes over, no I wouldn’t like to see the death penalty here in the UK.

Hear, hear.
But if, IF, it is brought back, could we have something better than the hideous electric chair or “fatal” injection…. Also, who will do the execution?

I don't agree it wasn't a deterrent, and I don't understand how you can come to that conclusion Barleyfields. There were very few murders in this country when I was growing up, and neither should this country be compared to the US.

No! Never!

This country has changed beyond recognition since I was growing up mayisay. There were plenty of murders but we didn’t have 24/7 news then telling us about them. There have always been murders in the UK and there always will be. We have to look to the US when asking whether the death penalty is a deterrent because so few civilised countries now have a death penalty and scarcely a week goes by without our hearing of yet another mass shooting in the US, where clearly it does not serve as a deterrent.

Ruth Ellis, she shouldn't have got the death penalty then, and wouldn't now, I believe.

Derek Bentley also.

It means that child torturers are left to serve a relatively short time in prison, given a new identity, and assimilated back into society - all clean and new and rehabilitated, supposedly.

No
There are some cases where you wish it was the case, but overall no, not in a civilised country.
When did France stop executions, does anyone know?

Not until the 80s, I think.

MissAdventure

How about listening to the little tot who was literally hobbling around his own home, sobbing that nobody loved him?

Seeing the footage of little Star, with her broken leg, being hit by the woman who had caused it, because Star wasn't walking fast enough?

The tape of Lesley-Anne Downey, crying that she wanted her mum? Too horrific to have ever been released.
It's believed she died from a heart attack, literally scared to death.

Child cruelty and neglect is heartbreaking.
Long long sentences should be imposed and some never let out again, which usually is what happens.Certain killers must die in prison.

MissAdventure

Not until the 80s, I think.

Thanks, I thought it was at quite a late date, and the guillotine used too ( may be wrong sp)

I might be too.
It seems awfully late now I think of it.

Barleyfields

No. Innocent people have been hanged. Now Lucy Letby’s guilt is being seriously questioned by experts. If a death sentence had been available she would probably be dead.

This is exactly what I was thinking. In addition to this, all the unsafe convictions of past decades would have had the same result. The Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four immediately spring to mind, along with Stefan Kryzcow, the poor mothers who were sentenced to prison after losing several babies to cot death and who were exonerated several years later. There have been numerous other miscarriages of justice. It has been bad enough that they have been sent to prison, but it would have been far worse if they had been murdered by the state; which, in effect, is what the death penalty is.

The last British hangman ,Pierrepoint ,said the death penalty was not a deterrent

Yes I would.
It would save millions & sort out the over crowding situation.
We have CCTV, DNA, ANPR, all kinds of things that weren’t available years ago.

Rose west.
Ian Huntley.
Levi Belfield, off the top of my head….. are costing millions to keep in prison for life.

No. Too many errors, also, who would get to decide on the crimes to be punished in this way? Decisions could be racist, and any other 'ist'that exists.

Those were terrible, heartbreaking cases MissAdventure. I for one wish the same suffering could be meted out to the perpetrators. Death is too quick and easy. I would like to see them spend the rest of their lives in prison, where we know other prisoners will make sure they suffer to the point they are kept in solitary confinement for their own safety. I would like to see the sentencing guidelines changed so that more whole life sentences passed. I realise we don’t have the prison capacity at present but frankly old hulks offshore, as in days gone by, would get my vote (though the human rights brigade would never allow it). Such monsters have, to my mind, forfeited all human rights. My feelings as regards those who cause animals to suffer are exactly the same. The sentences they receive are pathetic.

They were, and Levi Belfield too.
There is the 999 call recording of one of his victims, lying in the road, watching him reverse his car to run her over again.

She's whimpering "it hurts, he hurt me..."

I see nothing wrong with feeling vengeful about him. He ran her over for being a "blonde slag".

No.

“Violet van der Elst was a British entrepreneur and campaigner best remembered for her activities against the death penalty.

Biography
She was born Violet Anne Dodge, the daughter of a coal porter and a washerwoman, she herself worked as a scullery maid. In 1903, she married Henry Arthur Nathan, a civil engineer 13 years her senior.[2] She developed cosmetics including Shavex, the first brush-less shaving cream and became a successful businesswoman. After her first husband died on 15 November 1927, she married Jean Julien Romain Van der Elst, a Belgian who had been working for her as a manager but was also a painter.[3]

Having amassed a huge personal fortune she purchased Harlaxton Manor, in Lincolnshire, England in 1937.[4][5] She restored the house, having renamed it Grantham Castle, and had it wired for electricity.[6]

She gained publicity from her vocal campaigns against capital punishment, and stood three times, unsuccessfully, as an independent candidate to be a Member of Parliament. Firstly she fought the Putney constituency at the 1935 general election, coming third. Then she stood for Southwark Central in the 1940 by-election as an independent supporting the National Government, coming third. And lastly, she contested Hornchurch at the 1945 general election, coming fourth.

She lost most of her fortune through "obsessive litigation".[6] She was forced to sell her country house and moved to a flat in Knightsbridge, London, in 1959.

Publications
She wrote the book On the Gallows in 1937 as part of her efforts to eradicate the death penalty.[7] In the same year she published a collection of 13 ghost stories, The Torture Chamber and Other Stories.[8]

Death and legacy
Largely forgotten, she died in Ticehurst House Hospital, a lunatic asylum, in Ticehurst, Sussex, on 30 April 1966, aged 84;[9][10] her wealth reduced to £15,528,[9] having seen the abolition of capital punishment for murder in Britain the previous year.

In the 2005 film Pierrepoint, she is played by Ann Bell”.
…this admirable lady was a relative of a friend of mine. She would be turning in her grave at the thought of the death penalty being reintroduced.

I don't think there were so many what I call 'casual'murders when I was younger; that is," my wife was arguing with me so I lashed out; I didn't mean her to fall backwards onto the concrete and hit her head" (sentence : 3 years, True)
There always were and always will be the serial killer type, the gangland murders, the revenge killings, but now people lash out at someone who annoys them without thought because they are not inhibited by fear of a murder charge.
.
It is the children who are the most frightening, first because they kill so easily, and second, because they will be released while they are still young and who knows what thoughts are in their heads? Certainly not the mental health 'experts'.

👏👏👏

I found your post about this lady very interesting Maybee70 Thankyou.

No.

Barleyfields

This country has changed beyond recognition since I was growing up mayisay. There were plenty of murders but we didn’t have 24/7 news then telling us about them. There have always been murders in the UK and there always will be. We have to look to the US when asking whether the death penalty is a deterrent because so few civilised countries now have a death penalty and scarcely a week goes by without our hearing of yet another mass shooting in the US, where clearly it does not serve as a deterrent.

I agree

NO!!!

I once thought yes for child murderers, the likes the moors murderers, Ian Huntley & plenty of others who have admitted their crimes, but now, I think hanging is too good for them, now thinking solitary confinement is probably better for those child murderers.
Lucy Lettby proves a point not to bring hanging back (I never believed her to be guilty btw)