Breaking eggs to make omelettes

In 1986 Douglas Pascoe, a former warder on duty in Guard Tower 3 during the escape, confessed on national television to firing at Ryan. Pascoe said his shot could have accidentally killed Hodson. He remained silent at the time fearing he might get into trouble and believing that Ryan’s death sentence would be commuted to life imprisonment. Pascoe’s silence may have contributed to one of Australia’s worst miscarriages of justice when Ronald Ryan became the last man hanged in Australia.

Despite the questionable circumstances surrounding Ryan’s execution, the emotive calls for a reintroduction of the death penalty in Australia have been balanced by the overseas experience that retained the death penalty.

Since 1973 there have been 123 innocent people released from death row in the US. In one case Earl Washington was within hours of being electrocuted for a crime he had not committed. Washington spent 16 years on death row in Virginia before he was exonerated and freed from prison. In another case, ex-Vietnam veteran Charles Fain was kept on death row in Idaho for 18 years for the rape-murder of a child. DNA testing conclusively established his innocence and he was released in 2001.

Frank Lee Smith was not so lucky. He spent 14 years on Florida’s death row before he was exonerated. He died of a heart attack before he could be released.

The last man freed from death row in the US was John Ballard who spent three years on Florida’s death row. He was exonerated in 2006.

The US does not have a monopoly on these grave travesties of justice relating to the death penalty. In Britain, three men have been posthumously pardoned after their innocence was established beyond all doubt.

Timothy Evans

John Reginald Halliday Christie was a 54-year-old serial murderer and sexual psychopath who murdered at least six women. He also gave evidence at the trial of Timothy Evans, who was executed (later posthumously pardoned) for crimes almost certainly committed by Christie.

In 1949 Christie lived at 10 Rillington Place, London. Timothy Evans, 24, a semi-literate van driver, lived on the top floor with his wife and infant daughter.

Later the bodies of his wife and child were found in the backyard; they had been strangled. Evans made a statement in which he confessed to the killings, but later he accused Christie. Christie, a witness at Evans’ trial at the Old Bailey in 1950, denied any responsibility. Evans was sentenced to death for the murder of his child, and was hanged on March 9, 1950 at Pentonville Prison.

Three years later the bodies of six women were found at 10 Rillington Place. Christie admitted to raping and murdering the women. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. Christie was hanged, on the same gallows as Evans had been three years earlier, at Pentonville Prison on July 15, 1953. Among the various revelations at Christie’s trial was his admission that he had also killed Mrs Evans, although he denied having killed the baby.

On 10 February 1965, Chuter Ede (the Home Secretary at the time of Evans’ execution) said that the Evans case showed how a mistake was possible and that one had been made. Evans was granted a posthumous pardon in 1966.

Derek Bentley

Derek Bentley was 19-years-old and Christopher Craig, 16-years, when the pair broke into a London warehouse on November 2, 1952. Craig was armed with a revolver. The two youths were seen entering the premises and police were called.