‘Let him have it’: an unsafe conviction

The film, Let him have it (1991), recreates the circumstances surrounding the murder of a London policeman during an attempted burglary of a warehouse in the early 1950s. Two south London boys, Derek Bentley and Christopher Craig, stood accused of the murder. Bentley was alleged to have called out to his accomplice, Craig, ‘let him have it, Chris’ and, after a while, Craig shot and killed the policeman. Craig, who was 16 years old, was jailed. Bentley, on the other hand, was found guilty of murder and hanged on 28 January 1953. Both the verdict and sentence proved to be highly controversial and eventually the sentence was quashed by the Court of Appeal on 30 July 1998: R v Derek William Bentley (Deceased) [2001] 1 Cr App R 21.

The utilitarian argument

Those who have argued for the death penalty maintain that it has a uniquely deterrent force compared with