Report on Mandatory Sentences - Law Reform Commission

which captured adverse public attention, 9 including the case of Edith Thompson and her lover, Frederick
Bywaters, in 1923 10 and the case of George Stoner and his lover, Alma Rattenbury, in 1935. 11
2.05 A number of attempts were made to abolish the death penalty. In 1929, a Select Committee on
Capital Punishment recommended the suspension of the death penalty for a trial period of five years. 12 In
1938, the House of Commons carried an amendment to the abortive Criminal Justice Bill 1938 which
sought to abolish the death penalty entirely. 13 In 1948, the House of Commons carried an amendment to
the Criminal Justice Bill 1948 which again sought to suspend the death penalty for a period of five
years. 14 This was reversed by the House of Lords and, at report stage, a back-bencher, Sydney
Silverman, tabled an amendment to the same effect. 15 Each attempt failed.
2.06 In 1949, a Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, the Gowers Commission, was established
to consider whether liability to suffer capital punishment for murder should be limited or modified and, if
so, to what extent or by what means. 16 In its 1953 <strong>Report</strong>, 17 the Gowers Commission made a number of
recommendations including that the statutory age limit for the death penalty should be raised from 18 to
21 years; that discretion should be given to the jury to decide whether to impose the death penalty or a
life sentence; that degrees of murder should not be established; and that the M’Naghten rules governing
the insanity defence should be reformed. 18 It has been asserted that the report had a limited impact on
policy-makers as its most significant recommendations were subsequently rejected by the government. 19
2.07 In spite of this setback, those in favour of abolition continued to campaign. They were spurred on
not least by three controversial cases which raised considerable doubt about the fairness and infallibility
of the law relating to murder. 20 The first case was that of Timothy Evans who was hanged in 1950 for the
murder of his baby daughter, Geraldine, while a count relating to the murder of his wife, Beryl, was left on
file. 21 It later transpired that a neighbour turned Crown Prosecution witness, John Christie, was
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Infanticide Act 1938.
Morris Crime and Criminal Justice since 1945 (Blackwell, 1989) at 78.
Weis “Not Innocent, Not Guilty; Edith Thompson was an adulterer, a woman consorting below her class. But
was that reason enough to hang her for murder” The Guardian 10 November 1993.
Joseph “The wife, her teenage lover and a brutal murder that became a Cause Celebre” Bournemouth Echo
24 April 2011.
Dawtry “The Abolition of the Death Penalty in Britain” (1966) 6 Brit J Criminology 183 at 188.
Ibid.
Ibid at 189; and Morris Crime and Criminal Justice since 1945 (Blackwell, 1989) at 78-80.
Dawtry “The Abolition of the Death Penalty in Britain” (1966) 6 Brit J Criminology 183 at 189; and Morris Crime
and Criminal Justice since 1945 (Blackwell, 1989) at 78-80.
Smith “The Penalty for Murder” (1988) 19 Cambrian Law Review 5 at 5. Morris asserts that the Government
was careful to set the Commission’s terms of reference so as to preclude any consideration of abolition itself
(see: Morris Crime and Criminal Justice since 1945 (Blackwell, 1989) at 80).
<strong>Report</strong> of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment 1949-1953 (HMSO, Cmnd 8932, 1953); Morris Crime
and Criminal Justice since 1945 (Blackwell, 1989) at 80; and Dession “The Gowers <strong>Report</strong> and Capital
Punishment” (1954) 29 NYU L Rev 1061.
Shute “Punishing Murders: Release Procedures and the ‘Tariff’, 1953-2004” [2004] Crim LR 873 at 874; and
Morris Crime and Criminal Justice since 1945 (Blackwell, 1989) at 81.
Shute “Punishing Murders: Release Procedures and the ‘Tariff’, 1953-2004” [2004] Crim LR 873 at 874.
Morris Crime and Criminal Justice since 1945 (Blackwell, 1989) at 81.
R (on the application of Westlake) v Criminal Cases Review Commission [2004] EWHC 2779 (Admin); Morris
Crime and Criminal Justice since 1945 (Blackwell, 1989) at 81-83; Prior “Timothy Evans Family’s 60-Year
Conviction Wait” BBC News 9 March 2010. Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8556721.stm [Last
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