Executioner Pierrepoint: An Autobiography

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There have been several television and radio documentaries about or including Pierrepoint, [90] [91] and he has been portrayed on stage and screen, and in literature. How pro-Palestine boycott movement is fuelling the fast food high street cancellation sweeping social media. Argentina condemns Israel's bombing on Gaza refugee camp that killed more than 50 people as Bolivia severs. Nor did I leave the list, as one newspaper said, by being arbitrarily taken off it, to shut my mouth, because I was about to reveal the last words of Ruth Ellis.

A Very English Hangman: The Life and Times of Albert Pierrepoint

An infamous photograph, taken by a sergeant in the Army film and photographic unit, shows Klein standing amid hundreds of skeletal corpses. Pierrepoint executed dozens upon dozens of other war criminals just as vicious (while also executing Britain’s own Acid Bath Killer in 1949). There were several before them, including James Billington and his three sons, Thomas, William and John; [12] Gregory Brandon and his son, Richard; [13] and the Otway family. Pierrepoint is portrayed by Edwin Brown executing Timothy Evans in the 1971 film 10 Rillington Place.Pierrepoint's life story includes a passage all the more significant because it was written by a man with unparalleled knowledge of the final stage of a legal process that embraces capital punishment: 'The fruit of my experience has this bitter after-taste: that I do not now believe that any of the hundreds of executions I carried out has in any way acted as a deterrent against future murder. Even in the unmitigated evil of the Nazi death camps, 39-year-old Kramer stood out as a demonic killer. If the drop was too short, the condemned man was liable to be strangled to death; too long and there was a risk of decapitation. It did not deter them then, and it had not deterred them when they committed what they were convicted for. g] The Home Office considered prosecuting him under the Official Secrets Act 1939, but when two of the stories appeared that contained information that contradicted the recollections of other witnesses, they did not do so.

Obituary: Albert Pierrepoint | The Independent | The Independent Obituary: Albert Pierrepoint | The Independent | The Independent

The fruit of my experience has this bitter after-taste: that I do not now believe that any of the hundreds of executions I carried out has in any way acted as a deterrent against future murder. Albert always claimed that his uncle had taught him not to drink before a hanging: ‘If you can’t do the job without whisky, don’t do it at all. He prided himself on delivering as quick, dignified and as humane a death as possible, paying meticulous attention to the height, weight and build of the condemned, to ensure the fatal drop was as efficient and as painless as possible. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions. The metal eye through which the rope was looped was placed under the left jawbone which, when the prisoner dropped, forced the head back and broke the spine.

He began with Volkenrath and, because the cells were so small, had to ask her to step out into the corridor before he pinioned her arms to her sides with a leather strap. In early January 1956 Pierrepoint travelled to Manchester for another execution and paid for staff to cover the bar in his absence. In a career spanning 25 years, it's estimated Albert Pierrepoint was involved in the executions of between 435 and 600 people, among them Nazi war criminals.