Final companion to the last condemned man
IT is the morning of December 17, 1963. In a standalone red-brick unit in the grounds of Horfield Prison, two men walk into the cell of condemned man Russell Pascoe. Hangman Harry Allen walks up to the 23-year-old and speaks briskly: "Stand up son," he says. "Do as I say and it will all be quick and easy."
Fourteen seconds later and Pascoe will be dead.
Robert, right, escorts Russell Pascoe
In the time it has taken Allen to speak to Pascoe, Allen's assistant has bound the prisoner's hands behind his back with a leather strap.
As it is fastened, two prison officers take a firm hold of Pascoe's arms, and lead him at the double out of the cell into the room directly across the corridor.
Pascoe is manoeuvred on to the trap door, and Allen's assistant immediately puts another leather strap around the prisoner's ankles. Pulling it tight, he fastens the strap in one swift movement – there is no fumbling; no fuss.
A second later and Harry Allen approaches Pascoe holding the noose, which is already placed around the fabric hood. He places it straight over Pascoe's head. He tightens the rope, simultaneously twisting the noose towards the side of the prisoner's head.
Allen takes a step back, and waves his hand. At the signal the two officers step back away from the condemned man, and Allen pulls a lever. The trap door opens and without a sound Pascoe drops into the history books.
Death is instant. His body is left hanging for 90 minutes.
Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the hanging, which caused outrage at the time – with protesters camping outside Horfield Prison the night before the execution to demonstrate against capital punishment.
Within two years capital punishment had been technically abolished in the UK (with the exception of regicide and treason, for which it technically still stands).
The 23-year-old Cornishman – the last man to be hanged in Bristol – and his accomplice, Dennis Whitty, who was executed simultaneously at Winchester, were given the unenviable footnote in history of being the fourth and third to last men ever to be executed in Britain.
The pair had been convicted of murdering an elderly Cornish farmer during a bungled burglary. Pascoe hit the farmer with an iron bar, before Whitty finished him off by stabbing him with a knife. Both men were deemed to be equally responsible for the killing.
Now, five decades on, a documentary film crew is at Horfield Prison walking through the final moments of Russell Pascoe's life. The programme, presented by Gethin Jones, will appear as part of a new 10-part series, Crime and Punishment, which is due to be broadcast on BBC1, starting on March 5.
One man remembers that fateful day better than most. Former prison officer Robert Douglas was working at Birmingham Prison in the 1960s, when he was seconded to be part of Russell Pascoe's personal guard for the six weeks ahead of the execution.
"There would be a team of six prison officers who would work around the clock, in shifts, to be with the condemned man – there was always a pair of prison officers guarding Pascoe.
"The idea was to stop the condemned man from killing himself, ironically enough. It was the law that had condemned him, and it must be the law that executed him," the 73-year-old explains.
"Actually the six weeks leading up to the execution were not as sombre as you might imagine. Russell was quite an amiable young man, and it wasn't all doom and gloom all the time.
"You have to remember that the sentence was by no means set in stone until at the very last moment. He had three chances of having the death penalty commuted to a life sentence – first by an appeal at the High Court six weeks before the execution was due to take place, then three weeks before the hanging the Home Secretary had the option to commute the sentence, then finally, the night before the execution the Queen had a final option of offering clemency."
But in the case of Pascoe and Whitty all three opportunities passed without success. By the time Robert arrived at Horfield Prison on the evening of December 16, to take on the night shift with fellow officer Ken Russell, Pascoe knew for the first time that his fate was sealed.
"Another officer had told us that the execution was going ahead, and that Pascoe was understandably feeling a little depressed that evening," he recalls.
"I can remember saying to Ken, 'I'm not looking forward to this shift – I mean, what the hell are we going to talk about all evening?' I was only 24 years old myself at the time, and we had built up a good relationship with Pascoe over the previous six weeks – playing cards and Monopoly and listening to the radio.
"We went into the cell, and I asked Russell if he wanted a cup of tea. He said he didn't. So I tried to coax him – 'I've brought you a cream doughnut' – I'd brought him a cream cake each day as a little treat. With that, he perked up a little and said, 'ah go on then, I'll have a tea'.
"So we sat drinking tea for a while, none of us really saying anything. Just blathering about nothing to try to fill the silences.
"Then Russell suddenly said, 'They weighed me today, so they'll know how far I'll drop.' Ken and I just looked at each other – what are you meant to say to that?"
The evening was to become even more awkward when there was a knock at the door a little later. It was the prison governor, accompanied by another man. Robert recognised the second individual as hangman Harry Allen – he had shared a drink with Allen earlier that evening in the officers' mess.
The condemned man did not realise who was standing in front of him.
"Harry Allen thrust his hand out to Russell, and he instinctively shook his hand, with Allen saying: 'How do you do, son'.
"Allen then turned on his heel and left the room with the governor. That's when Russell realised who he was. He got angry, and said, 'That was the ****ing hangman wasn't it? What does he want to shake hands with me for? If I'd known who he was I wouldn't have shook his hand.'"
In fact it was a ritual that Allen always observed – shaking hands with the condemned man was something he had picked up from his mentor, hangman Albert Pierrepoint, who was by then retired.
"I think it salved their conscience somehow," Robert says.
There was another knock on the door at 11pm. This time it was the duty principal officer.
"Pascoe's brother had turned up at the jail. He'd been trying to get there for visiting time that afternoon, but had come all the way from Cornwall on a motorscooter, which had broken down three times on the way – which is why he had got to Bristol so late.
"Under the circumstances the principal decided to let him see his brother. So I took Russell to the closed visiting room – which had a glass screen to separate the prisoner from the visitor. I stood there while Russell and his brother had this awful, stilted conversation – neither quite knowing what to say to the other.
"In the end, it became painful to hear, so I walked up and put a hand on Russell's shoulder and asked him if he was happy to draw the conversation to a close. He was. When we got back to the cell, Pascoe went straight to bed, and the doctor came to give him a strong sleeping draught. One of the last things he said to Ken and I was that he would ask the governor if we could still be there at 8am, when the two prison officers and the hangman came for him. He wanted there to be a couple of familiar faces in the room when the time came.
"But as it turned out, when 7am arrived and our shift ended, Russell was still fast asleep. We decided we couldn't wake him up any earlier than necessary – it was better to let him sleep on for a while. So we were relieved by two other officers, and we left an hour before his execution.
"It certainly made the day easier for us that he was still asleep. There was no final conversation. No goodbyes."
Robert was still in the prison when eight o'clock struck, and he heard the dull thud of the trap doors opening in the execution chamber.
"By the next day I was back at Birmingham Prison, getting on with my normal life," he says.
Since his retirement, however, Robert has returned to that evening many times in his mind – especially as he has now developed a successful writing career, with five books to his name, including three volumes of autobiography.
"It's an experience you never forget," he admits. "But I didn't let it bother me emotionally. He had been found guilty of murder, and in those days the law stated that was the punishment. End of story."
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Final...ail/story.html
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