Penalty Paid

Derek Bentley gave up without a struggle when London cops in search of burglars cornered him one night last November on the warehouse roof of Messrs. Barlow & Parker, confectioners. Police took his knife and knuckle-duster from him, then turned their attention to his accomplice, a desperate 16-year-old named Christopher Craig.

"If you want me, well, come and get me," growled Craig. Bentley, though already under arrest, shouted to his pal: "Let him have it, Chris!" Chris Craig emptied his Colt automatic, and one of its .45-cal. slugs killed Police Constable Sidney Miles. The cops, prohibited by English law from carrying firearms, had to rush a man to the nearest station house to sign an emergency application and get a pistol. When it arrived, Detective-Constable Fairfax opened fire. Craig, unhit but scared, jumped 25 feet to the ground and was captured.

Partner in Crime. Under the law, Derek Bentley, as a partner in a crime which culminated in murder, was as guilty as the one who pulled the trigger. Thus instructed by the trial judge, a jury in Old Bailey found both Craig and Bentley guilty of murder. Craig was only sentenced to jail, because he was under 18. But for Derek Bentley, a hapless lad of 19 who has been described as "three-quarter-witted," Lord Chief Justice Goddard grimly donned the black cap to pronounce the death sentence. Since the jury had recommended mercy, many Britons expected Britain's Home Secretary, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, to commute Bentley's sentence.

But to Sir David, one of Britain's most famed barristers, more than mercy was involved. The unarmed bobby represents the sanctity of law in Britain, and so long as he is unarmed, his person must be specially protected. Moreover, the murder of Constable Miles had come at a time when armed violence by teen-agers and "cosh" crimes were increasing alarmingly in Britain. Sir David upheld the death sentence.

Telegrams of protest poured into the House of Commons. A band of 50 M.P.s, mostly Bevanites, tried to debate the subject and were ruled out of order. Then Nye Bevan led a deputation representing 150 M.P.s to Sir David's office--without success. Bentley's parents appealed to Prime Minister Churchill, to the Duke of Edinburgh, to Queen Elizabeth herself.

Judgment Executed. Soon after dawn one day last week, a crowd of about 500 gathered outside the gates of Wands-worth jail. A Rolls-Royce disgorged a wealthy woman who said she has spent -L-60,000 fighting capital punishment. She hammered on the jail gates shouting: "This boy is being murdered. I want to see the governor." The crowd took up her cry, "Murder! Murder!"

When the clock hands crept toward 9, men bared their heads, and the crowd broke into Abide with Me and the 23rd Psalm. As shop shutters rumbled open and milk bottles clinked in the streets of London, Derek Bentley went to the gallows. Within minutes the prison gates opened with a clang, and a warder emerged with the traditional black-framed notice board: "The judgment of death was this day executed ..." The crowd surged forward with an angry roar; someone smashed the notice board. After half an hour's scuffling, the police--using only their fists--were able to disperse the demonstrators.

But in the dives off Tottenham Court Road and in Soho, in back alleys of the East End, in the slums of Glasgow and Liverpool--all the places where British criminals gather--there was no misunderstanding. They knew well what Derek Bentley's execution meant.

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