Local Life - St Helens - October 2019

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hanging numerous war criminals including the
notorious concentration camp commandant Josef
Kramer – known as ‘The Beast of Belsen’ – and Irma
Grese, the ‘Hyena of Auschwitz’. Infamous for her
brutal treatment of female prisoners at Auschwitz,
Grese would allegedly select only the most beautiful
women to go to the gas chamber out of jealousy. It
was also said that she had gruesome lampshades
made from prisoners’ skin in her quarters.
Among Pierrepoint’s later hangings was Wigan man
Norman William Green, known for stabbing two
young boys to death. The first victim was William
Harmer, found in a field off Miry Lane in 1954 by a
passer-by. Harmer later died in hospital from the
eleven stab wounds Green inflicted.
Green pleaded insanity in court but was convicted
after confessing to the murder of the two boys. He
was hanged by Pierrepoint in July 1955 at Walton
Jail in Liverpool.
The last woman to be hanged in Britain also met her
end at Pierrepoint’s noose. In London, former model
and club manager Ruth Ellis shot her ex-lover David
Blakeley five times. Despite her solicitor appealing
to the Home Secretary, Ellis declared she wanted
no part in appeal proceedings and regardless, was
told she would not be reprieved. Her execution was
carried out in 12 seconds.
On that same night seven year old William
Mitchell was also stabbed by a man fitting Green’s
description, but two men came to his rescue and
chased the attacker away. Not so lucky was ten
year old Norman Yates, who Green attacked a year
later in Back Hope Street, Ince. Yates died from his
injuries.