MP calls for return of death penalty in bid to tackle rise in violent crime in Wild West Britain
AN MP has called for the return of the death penalty in a bid to tackle rise in violent crime in Wild West Britain.
Former minister John Hayes used written parliamentary questions to ask for the "potential merits" of capital punishment to be reconsidered.
Parliament abolished the death penalty in 1965, after public furore led to a change in the law.
But Mr Hayes, who represents South Holland and Deepings in Lincolnshire, argued that capital punishment "should be available to the courts" in cases such as Khalid Masood.
He wrote to Mr Gauke to "make an assessment of the potential merits of bringing forward legislative proposals to reintroduce the death penalty to tackle violent crime".
The 53-year-old terrorist killed five people and wounded 50 more in a terror attack at Westminster in March 2017.
Masood mowed down pedestrians before storming through the gates to the Palace of Westminster, fatally stabbing PC Keith Palmer.
He was shot dead by armed officers, but Mr Hayes suggested that it would have been "appropriate" for the attacker to be hanged, had he survived.
Responding to the question, Justice Minister Edward Argar said the government "opposes the use of the death penalty in all circumstances and has no plans to reintroduce it".
Pointing out that the UK is campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty globally, he added: "There is no evidence that capital punishment acts as a deterrent to violent crime. Furthermore, the reintroduction of the death penalty would bring with it the very real risk that some innocent people would die."
Capital punishment in the UK
- Parliament abolished the death penalty in this country in 1965.
- Technically the death penalty could be handed down in high treason cases until 1998.
- But the last person to be executed for treason was 39-year-old William Joyce, who was hanged in at Wandsworth Prison, London, on January 3, 1946, for betraying Britain.
- The last people to be sentenced to death in Britain were Peter Anthony Allen and Gwynne Owen Evans – real name John Robson Walby – in 1964. They had knifed a friend to death for money.
- The last woman to be executed was Ruth Ellis, who shot dead her racing-driver lover David Blakely outside a London pub in 1955.
Mr Hayes' comments come amid a surge in violent crime across the UK, with 115 homicide investigations launched in London alone this year.
As of 2018, a total of 52 countries still have the death sentence, predominantly in the Middle East and North Africa.
The US remains one of the very few Western democracies that executes some criminals, with nearly 3,000 inmates currently on death row.
Mr Hayes, a former senior parliamentary adviser to David Cameron, : "We have got an issue in Britain with very serious crime.
"We have had a number of serious crimes, the murder rates increases and barely a week goes by without hearing about some horrific child murder or old people being attacked and killed.
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"Many of my constituents say that's partly because we don't respond appropriately.
"It seems to me there really needs to be a fitting punishment."
The last people to be sentenced to death in Britain were Peter Anthony Allen and Gwynne Owen Evans – real name John Robson Walby – in 1964.
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