A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
NOTHING said or done now will bring Derek William Bentley back to life. But nothing I have heard said or seen written shakes my conviction that Bentley.' ought still to be alive. I am not criticising the Home Secretary.
Everyone who knows him recognises his humanity and devotion to justice. It has been said that he could not and should not have yielded to popular clamour. I concede that, of course; it was his original decision that distressed me. But I do not for a moment accept the term popular clamour, or even emotion. I see it as a spontaneous expression of that innate and instinctive love of fair-play more characteristic, I think, of this nation than of any other on earth. Mr. R. T. Paget, who as a Q.C. is not likely tQ inculcate disregard for the law, seemed to me to put the essence of the thing in one sentence-. " A three-quarter- witted boy of 19 is to be hanged for a murder which he did not commit, and which was committed fifteen-minutes after he was arrested." I know, of course, what the law about con- spiracy to murder is, and no doubt the jury had to bring in a verdict of guilty. But it is possible to take too legalistic a view where life and death is concerned. The survivor in a suicide had must be found guilty of murder if the pact is proved, but I never heard of one being executed. When the Bentley verdict was given, accompanied by the jury's recommendation to mercy, I never dreamed that the sentence would be carried out. Many men who have indisputably committed murder have been reprieved; would it really have been improper for the prerogative of mercy to be exercised in favour of one who had not ? It is reported that the widow of P.C. Miles said that no good purpose would be served by hanging Bentley. I hope that is true. * * * *
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