I WAS GLAD to see an announcement after the Spectator
had gone to press last week that William Leighton had been re- prieved. But I still find it disturbing that a man who has been found by a jury unfit to plead should two years later be brought into court again, tried for murder and sentenced to death. There is no doubt at all that such a procedure both in England and in Northern Ireland is entirely legal, but I doubt very much if it is in the public interest. It is small incentive for a criminal lunatic to respond to treatment and become less insane if he knows that by doing so he is liable to be sent back to court to be tried again and possibly sentenced to death. The Home Office told the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment that a man recovering his sanity would be brought up again for trial 'only in exceptional circumstances.' Is the practice in Northern Ireland similar? If so, what were the exceptional circumstances in this case?
Previous page
