20 JANUARY 1956, Page 6

A Spectator's Notebook

IT HAS been widely pointed out that if the policeman had died the three innocent men who were convicted of assaulting him and were released last week would have been hanged. That is almost certainly true but, if they had been hanged, would we ever have found out about the miscarriage of justice? I doubt it. The real criminals would probably not have confessed,' and if they had done so, the confessions would probably have been blithely disregarded. It is very much easier to establish the innocence of a living than of a dead man, and the Evans- Christie case has shown how reluctant the Home Office is to admit that an innocent man has been hanged.