Last Executions: 50 Years Ago Today.

On the  13 August 1964, Peter Anthony Allen, at Walton Prison in Liverpool, and Gwynne Owen Evans, at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, were executed for the murder of John Alan West on 7 April that year. Wiki.

It is impossible to calculate just how many innocent lives the loss of the ultimate penalty cost but the fact that the Home Office has been so unwilling to publish annual figures may be a clue. The figure certainly runs into many thousands during this half century. And YES - I have seen those Home Office stats. If we return to Allen & Owen Evans - they broke into a man's house and bludgeoned him to death with an iron bar. Can we really say that imprisonment would have been a suitable disposal? Just think. They would almost certainly be alive today and would have been out of prison for over THIRTY years!