50 years ago on this date, 13 August
1964, Gwynne
Evans and Peter Allen, became the last two men to be executed by hanging in the
United Kingdom. I will post information about them from Wikipedia.
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Evans (left), Allen (right)
Last known image of the last 2 men hanged in
the United Kingdom.
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The
murder of John Alan West on 7 April 1964 was the crime which led to the
last time a death sentence was executed in the United Kingdom. West was a
53-year-old van driver for a laundry when he was killed by Gwynne Evans and Peter
Allen who had gone to rob him at his home in Seaton, Cumberland. Both murderers
were unemployed and had a history of petty crime; they were arrested and
charged within two days of the crime. At trial, each blamed the other, but the
jury by its verdict found both responsible. Use of the death penalty had been
declining and the decision not to reprieve the two came as a surprise.
Gwynne
Evans
Gwynne Owen Evans had been born at Maryport, Cumberland on 1 April 1940
with the name John Robson Walby, the third but eldest surviving child of
Thomas and Hannah Walby. While attending a Secondary modern school in Maryport,
he occasionally attended Dovenby Hall Mental Colony in Cockermouth. On leaving
school at 15 he worked as a page boy at a hotel in Carlisle and an engine
cleaner for British Rail, in between periods of unemployment. He was given a
supervision order in 1957 and sent to a hostel in Bristol; later that year he
enlisted in the Border Regiment but was discharged in March 1958 as "unfit
under existing standards". He enlisted again in the Royal Inniskilling
Fusiliers in November 1958, being discharged in February 1959 for the same
reason.
At
this point he took to using the name Owen Evans, and worked briefly for British
Rail before again trying the armed forces. The Royal Air Force accepted him in
July 1959, but discharged him after four months as "physically unfit for
Air Force service". It was during a series of short-term jobs around
Workington from September 1960 that Evans briefly worked for the Lakeland
Laundry and came to know Jack West. He soon left and moved to Birmingham in
October 1961 and there worked as a kitchen porter, driver and lift attendant.
On 5 April 1963 as Gwyn Evans he was convicted by Carlisle magistrates of
larceny of 10s cash, and obtaining 16s. cash and a railway ticket by false
pretences. He was fined £5 with four days' detention in default; he chose to
serve the four days. He had stolen two half crowns from a friend while he was
distracted, and obtained a 16s loan from a police station by claiming to have
lost his wallet at his mother's funeral. In the following month Evans was given
three months' imprisonment at Dudley for driving a motor vehicle without a
licence, and using a driving licence with intent to deceive. Evans enlisted
again, into the Lancastrian Brigade, in October 1963 but was discharged on 14
November 1963 when his criminal convictions and failure to disclose them came
to light.
Evans
then moved to Preston where he lodged with Peter Allen and his wife. He worked
for an agricultural trading society for about a month. On 21 January 1964 Evans
committed his first crime with Allen, removing the lead flashing from an empty
house. On 28 January the two broke open a cigarette machine and stole the
contents; they then stole a car and a van, using them in burglaries of several
other premises. An incompetent attempt to cover up the van's registration
number led to their arrest and to fines of £10. From 5 March Evans was employed
by a dairy; on 17 March, having only worked two days, he was dismissed for
absenteeism. The robbery of West was intended to provide enough money to pay
the fines.
When
he appeared in court, Evans spoke with a Welsh accent. He claimed that he had
adopted the name Evans on finding out that his parents were German and that he
had been born at Innsbruck.
Peter
Allen
Peter Anthony Allen was born at Wallasey, then in Cheshire, on 4 April 1943,
the second son of Richard Thomas Allen. After attending a secondary modern
school in Wallasey, he too left at age 15. He obtained but lost two jobs within
a month, dismissed for carelessness, but later found employment as a
pipe-cleaner for three months. He enlisted as a junior gunner in the Junior
Leaders Regiment of the Royal Artillery, serving for 11 months before being
discharged as "no longer required"; he was given a good reference.
For two years after leaving the army, Allen worked for two trucking companies;
he was dismissed by the second in October 1961 when he was given a promotion
and was unable to handle the responsibility. While he was working as a trucker,
Allen received his first criminal conviction, for aiding and abetting the
taking of a car in August 1960; he was given a conditional discharge.
On
11 November 1961 Allen married a cinema usherette; the couple had a Catholic
wedding. Later that month he found employment at a scrap-dealer, being
dismissed in April 1962 for poor timekeeping. Six months work in a dairy was
followed by six months in a steel works, Allen having moved to Preston in November
1962. He found a job as a labourer but after two months he injured his back and
was unable to work; he was not dismissed until January 1964. Later that month
he committed the various robbery offences with Evans. In February 1964 he was
taken on by a Preston dairy, but was dismissed for absenteeism after a month.
Crime
and arrest
John
West, known to his friends as Jack, was a bachelor who lived alone at 28 Kings
Avenue in Seaton. Aged 53, he had worked for 34 years as a van driver for the
Lakeland Laundry in Workington. After a normal working day, West had returned
to his home just before 6 PM on Monday 6 April 1964. At about 3:00 AM
the following morning his next-door neighbour was awoken by a noise in West's
house and, looking out of the window, observed a car disappearing down the
street. The neighbour called the police, who found West dead from severe head
injuries and a stab wound to the chest. In his house the police found a
raincoat in the pockets of which was a medallion and Army Memo Form. The medallion
was inscribed "G.O. Evans, July, 1961", and the memo form had the
name "Miss Norma O'Brian" on it, together with a Liverpool address.
Liverpool Police traced a Norma O'Brien at the address; she was a 17-year-old
Liverpool factory worker who told the police that in the autumn of 1963, while
staying with her sister and brother-in-law in Preston, she had met a man called
"Ginger Owen Evans". She also confirmed that she had seen Evans
wearing the medallion. She was driven up to Kendal and identified the
medallion.
Evans
and Allen had stolen a car (a black 1959 Ford Prefect, registration NXC 771) to
go to West's house, and later abandoned it in a builders' yard in Ormskirk,
Lancashire. Evans had asked a neighbour whether he could leave it there, and
the neighbour thought his behaviour suspicious; she reported it to the police
on the evening of Tuesday 7 April. The police found that the car had been
stolen and matched the descriptions given in Seaton; with descriptions of the
car and pictures of Evans, they traced its route back to Lancashire. The police
also traced Evans, through his parents, as well as criminal and army records,
to Allen's address in Preston. At 1 PM on Wednesday 8 April, less than 36 hours
after West's murder, the police turned up (in search of Evans) at Allen's home
in Clarendon Road, Preston. Allen agreed to go to the police station in
Preston, and was then driven up to Kendal and then to Workington (where the
murder squad were based). In questioning Allen claimed to have been home with
his wife and "Sandy Evans" on the night of the murder.
He
said his wife was visiting her mother in Manchester, and gave the address. A
Bolton police officer went to the address to find only the mother there; he
left telling her he would wait outside for Allen's wife to return, and a few
hours later she did return and went out immediately to the police car to tell
the officer where to find Evans. Evans was soon found on a street corner at
Phillips Park Road in Miles Platting and a search revealed West's watch. Taken
initially to the police station in Middleton, when told he was being arrested
on suspicion of murder Evans admitted that he, together with Allen, Allen's
wife and two children, had gone to borrow money from West. Evans accused Allen
of sole responsibility for the murder. He and Mrs Allen were then driven up to
Workington.
Interrogation
Allen
initially stood by his claim not to have done anything on the Monday night, but
changed his mind when he was told that his wife and Evans were in custody. He
explained that Evans had suggested robbing West, and had initially gone into
West's house on his own. Evans had then let Allen in, hoping that West would
not notice, but West had come downstairs and so Allen had fought him. He said
that Evans had given him an iron bar which he used to hit West. Allen then made
a statement along these lines.
Evans
claimed West had told him that he should see him if ever he was in Workington
and needed money, so he had gone to ask for a loan. However, he said that Allen
had forced his way into West's house intent on robbery, and that Allen had been
the only one to attack West. During questioning, Evans spontaneously mentioned
that he knew nothing about a knife and did not have one; until this point, the
police had not revealed that West had been stabbed. Evans admitted to stealing
West's watch.
Mrs
Allen's statement supported her husband's account that Evans had come out to
invite him in. She reported that she had asked the two men what had happened in
the house, and that Evans had said both had attacked West. At 1.15 AM on
Thursday 9 April, less than 48 hours after the murder, both Evans and Allen
were charged.
Trial
Allen
and Evans were committed for trial by Workington Magistrates after a two day
hearing. The trial was initially put down for Lancaster Assizes, but on
application by the defence was transferred to Manchester Assizes. The joint
trial before Mr Justice Ashworth began
on 23 June; Joseph Cantley QC led the prosecution, with Allen
defended by F. J. Nance and R. G. Hamilton, and Evans defended by Griffith
Guthrie Jones QC. The indictment was for capital murder under the Homicide
Act 1957, because West had been killed in the course of a theft (there was
an additional charge of robbery with aggravation of two bank pass books and a
gold watch). Allen claimed only to have struck West a few blows, and that Evans
used the knife. Evans' defence was that the robbery had been suggested by Allen
(if West refused a loan), and he had only gone along with it provided there was
no violence.
The
most important witness at the trial was Mrs Allen, who was called in her
husband's defence. She stuck to her statement that Evans had let Allen into
West's house, and that both men had been responsible for attacking West. She
also testified that Evans had thrown the knife used to murder West out of the
window of the car at Windermere, and that Evans had made an incriminatory
remark apparently referring to stabbing West. In cross-examination she accepted
that Evans had been more than a lodger to her; Evans' counsel then produced
affectionate letters which she had written to Evans in Durham
Prison while he was awaiting trial. The affectionate tone had suddenly
ended when she heard Evans' account of the murder at the Magistrates' court,
and she had then written of her "deep and bitter hatred" of him. The
Judge later directed the jury to treat her evidence with caution; however the
prosecution obtained permission to introduce her first statement which showed
that her story had remained consistent.
In
summing up, the judge asked the jury to decide if the murder had actually been
committed by one of the two men alone; in the latter case the other would be
found guilty only of non-capital murder at the most. The jury found both men
equally guilty, and both were sentenced to "suffer death in the manner
authorised by law".
Hangings
Both
men appealed, with the appeal heard by the Lord
Chief Justice Lord
Parker of Waddington, Mr Justice Winn and Mr Justice
Widgery on 20 July. Judgment was given the following day dismissing
the appeal. The date for the execution of the death sentence was set at 13
August. Under the law, the Home Secretary had to decide whether to advise the
Queen to exercise the prerogative of mercy and commute the death sentence to
life imprisonment; of 48 death sentences passed since the 1957 Act, 19 people
had been reprieved. Only two executions had taken place in 1963, and none so
far in 1964. According to author Elwyn Jones, the police in the north-west
expected a reprieve.
A
recent reprieve to a notably brutal murderer from Lancashire may have led
opinion in Preston to believe that a reprieve was likely for Allen and Evans,
and a petition demanding their hanging was started (there was also a smaller
petition calling for a reprieve). On 10 August, the Home Office sent out
letters announcing that the Secretary of State had "failed to discover any
sufficient ground to justify him in advising Her Majesty to interfere with the
due course of law" in both cases. Gwynne Owen Evans was hanged by
executioner Harry Allen
at Manchester's Strangeways
Prison at 8:00 am on 13 August 1964. At the same time,
Peter Allen was hanged at Liverpool's Walton Prison
by Robert Leslie
Stewart, assisted by Royston Rickard. These were the last two
hangings in Britain.
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