Once a Jolly Hangman Read Online Free PDF Page A

of this penalty. No one who knows the records can doubt that there have been cases of error, that there have been miscarriages of justice, and that innocent men have in fact been executed. Until human judgment is infallible, we have no right to inflict irrevocable doom. Above all these things, there is the sense which we all have that this penalty, of itself, denies the very principle on which we claim the right to inflict it - namely, the sanctity of human life. The sole justification, if there be one, for the retention of this penalty is that is it necessary to protect society. No one can prove that this is true, no one can prove that it is untrue, but we may compare it and draw inferences from the comparison with the state of affairs in other countries in which this penalty has been abolished.
    The possible travesties of justice Silverman said could not be countenanced in a society such as Britain were later to become a reality. There were proven tragedies. We will never know how many others have been killed by the state on the basis of flawed evidence? Silverman's impassioned speech when he introduced his bill to abolish the death penalty eventually had its desired effect. But not before the Conservative MP, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe KC, who became Home Secretary in 1951, would accept the idea of judicial error. 'Of course, a jury might go wrong, the Court of Appeal might go wrong, as might the House of Lord and the Home Secretary. They might all be stricken mad and go wrong. But that is not a possibility that anyone can consider likely. The honourable and learned Member is moving in a realm of fantasy when he makes that suggestion'. Nevertheless Silverman got his way by a large majority and the bill passed on to the House of Lords where it was rejected, as expected, by a majority of 153. No executions were carried out while abolition was on the parliamentary agenda, and they were not resumed until November 1948, after a gap of nine months. The abolitionist movement grew stronger and resulted in a Royal Commission to examine capital punishment in all its ugly detail. In 1956 the death penalty was finally abolished in Britain for all time. Much of this historic event can be attributed to Albert Pierrepoint's boldness when he and some British newspapers first broke the Official Secrets Act. Fortunately for the establishment he was not prosecuted no doubt wisely deciding that much worse would inevitably have come out at his trial. His daring - albeit for money and publicity to boost the takings at his pub - had a huge effect on the public conscience and the eventual decision to do away with the gallows forever.
    When Darshan Singh innocently broke Singapore's very own Official Secrets Act by allowing me to interview him - a surprise interview that made waves around the world - the establishment no doubt became fearful that their own citizens might one day catch the abolitionist bug. Not a word of the interview was published in any of the government-controlled newspapers, including The Straits Times. Only The New Paper published a report on its front and inside pages - not about the gory details I elicited but an attack on me for allegedly 'tricking' Darshan Singh to spill the beans and embarrass Singapore. Those were not his words but the words of The New Paper diverting public attention from reality once again! I am told that the shock waves that went through the hallowed halls of the Presidential Palace when my interview was first published in The Australian, one of the country's biggest newspapers, were palpable. It was the kind of publicity Singapore dreads. To them it was a major loss of face and no doubt inspired anti-death penalty activists everywhere to stand up and protest. They attacked and condemned Singapore - 'a nation with ice in its veins' - without mercy. It was the very stuff that so alarmed the British establishment back in the 1940s and 1950s when abolitionists, empowered by evidence that innocent men had been