PRO DEATH PENALTY QUOTES OF THE WEEK [SUNDAY 27 MAY 2012 TO SATURDAY 2 JUNE 2012]

QUOTE 1: “The death penalty should be reinstated for people who kill police following the murder of Pc Sharon Beshenivsky, the former Met Police chief has said. Lord Stevens said the "cold-blooded" murder of Pc Beshenivsky had "finally" changed his mind on the death penalty. [Sunday 20 November 2005]

QUOTE 2: "Such an extreme act of pure evil can only be met by the most extreme of responses - and that can only be death."

QUOTE 3: PC Beshenivsky was fatally shot outside a travel agents in Bradford. "All my life I've been against the death penalty," Lord Stevens said. "I genuinely never thought I'd say this, but I am now convinced that the monster who executed this young woman in cold blood should, in turn, be killed as punishment for his crime. For the first time in my life, despite 40 years at the sharp end of policing, I finally see no alternative."

QUOTE 4: If the death penalty was not imposed then wrong really has finally totally triumphed over right and all civilized society, all we hold dear, is the loser.

QUOTE 5: He said, "There must be "massive safeguards" to make sure there were no miscarriages of justice in imposing the death penalty. But those who can incontrovertibly be proved to have murdered a police officer should be killed." 

QUOTE 6: Murdering someone who you knew to be a police officer was different from all other murders.

"You are not just killing an individual, you are attacking everything they represent," he added.

"I know now that capital punishment is the only major way left for the majority of right-thinking people to fight against the minority of monsters in our midst.”

AUTHOR: John Stevens, Baron Stevens of Kirkwhelpington KStJ QPM DL FRSA (born 21 October 1942) was Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis (head of the Metropolitan Police Service) from 2000 until 2005. From 1991 to 1996, he was Chief Constable of Northumbria Police before being appointed one of HM Inspectors of Constabulary in September 1996. He was then appointed Deputy Commissioner of the Met in 1998 until his promotion to Commissioner in 2000.