David Yallop - To Encourage the Others

Either Mr Yallop is the biggest rogue unhanged in the history of this country or he is telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The Earl of Arran, speaking in the House of Lords debate, 14th June 1972.

To Encourage the Others was David Yallops first book. It caused the British Government to reopen the Craig/Bentley murder case a case which had been officially closed for twenty years. The book, which provoked a major debate in the House of Lords, and the authors television drama-documentary, convinced many, ranging from the former Lord Chancellor Lord Gardiner, Lords Arran and Goodman, to authors such as Arthur Koestler, that a miscarriage of justice had occurred. This was in the years 1970 to 1973. Publication of a new edition in 1990 was timed to coincide with a campaign to persuade the current Government to open again this murder case. The purpose of that campaign: to establish once and for all the full truth of this unique and horrific story.

In the authors words, Derek Bentley is dead, and a public inquiry into the circumstances leading to his death cannot bring him back from the grave, but it could acknowledge that he should never have been put there.

The fight to obtain that common justice was destined to continue until 1998.

To Encourage The Others.

The Day The Laughter Stopped.

Beyond Reasonable Doubt.

Deliver Us From Evil.

In Gods Name.

To The Ends Of The Earth.

Unholy Alliance.

How They Stole The Game.

The Power And The Glory.

Beyond Belief.

CONSTABLE

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Constable

Copyright David Yallop 1971, 1990

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-47211-660-4

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For Marie, who was always there when it mattered.

Appendix I
The House of Lords Debate, 14 June 1972

Appendix II
Dr Mathesons Second Report on Derek Bentleys Mental Condition

Appendix III
Lord Goddards Summing-up

In this country it is thought well to kill an admiral from time to time, to encourage the others.

Voltaire

As a realist I do not believe that the chances of error in a murder case, with these various instruments of the State present, constitute a factor which we must consider There is no practical possibility. The honourable and learned member asks me to say that there is no possibility. Of course, a jury might go wrong, the Court of Criminal Appeal might go wrong, as might the House of Lords and the Home Secretary: they might all be stricken mad and go wrong. But that is not a possibility which anyone can consider likely. The honourable and learned member is moving into a realm of fantasy when he makes that suggestion.

Sir David Maxwell Fyfe

14 April 1948

Hansard, vol. 449, col. 1007

Dear Reader

I have deliberately refrained from updating passages such as the introduction that follows this note, and the open letter to the then Home Secretary David Waddington. This is done in the hope that the reader may then join with me in a journey back in time to the England of the 1940s and 1950s.

David A. Yallop, 2014.

I approach the publication of a new edition of this book with feelings that are in direct conflict with each other. My continuing desire to see, finally, a small measure of justice for Derek Bentley in the shape of a posthumous Royal Pardon is as strong as ever, but it is tempered with a reluctance to open old wounds not only in others but also myself.

The research, writing and subsequent experiences after initial publication in 1971 have left me permanently marked. They also shattered many illusions.

Prior to that publication I deeply believed in the concept of British Justice. I was aware that it could occasionally fall into serious error and sometimes even into fatal error, but I also believed that once such an error could be demonstrated everything possible would be done by the Government of the day to rectify that mistake. Surely one had but to publish a self-evident truth and it would be acknowledged? What occurred after this book was first published is, in part, recorded in an Epilogue in this edition.

By early 1973 I could take no more. Close exposure to inhumanity eventually has a deadening effect upon the soul.

I had asked for a full public inquiry. The Government had initiated a secret investigation. It was abundantly clear that any inquiry, public or secret, should be conducted by individuals who would be seen by all to be independent and removed from the issues that this book raises. The Governments secret inquiry was conducted by a senior police officer.

I was not confronted with a brick wall. Walls can be knocked down. I was faced with a large, amorphous sponge with a capacity to soak up whatever truths were presented to it without any apparent change in its shape. It seemed that there was no more that I could do.

I have discovered since then that this case will not let me be, and to judge from the many letters that I continue to receive about it, it will not let the public be either. I have come to the realization that when Lord Goodman observed in the House of Lords debate upon this case Time does not enable one to bury the situation, he spoke a fundamental truth.

This book begins with an open letter addressed to the Home Secretary. At the time the book was first published, the Home Secretary was Reginald Maudling. An account of his and the then Governments response is contained within the Epilogue.

The book now ends with a second open letter, again addressed to the Home Secretary of the day, who at this time of writing is David Waddington. His and the current Governments response to both that letter and all the evidence contained within this book will be recorded in subsequent editions.

So, dear reader. Here we go again.

Sir,

Though personally reluctant to communicate with you via an open letter, my recent experiences with your Department have made it abundantly clear that any private dialogue between us would be one-sided. I am therefore left with no alternative other than to address my remarks to you publicly.

At the Old Bailey on the 11th December 1952 sixteen-year-old Christopher Craig and nineteen-year-old Derek William Bentley were found guilty of the murder of Police Constable Sidney Miles. Craig was sentenced to be detained until Her Majestys pleasure be known. Bentley was sentenced to death. On the 28th January 1953 Bentley was hanged at Wandsworth Prison, one of your predecessors, Sir David Maxwell Fyfe (later Lord Kilmuir), having previously refused to interfere with the due course of justice.

In an article written shortly after the execution, Kenneth Allsop said, A drab and second-rate youth goes to the gallows and a nation is in an emotional upset. I can recall only two other comparable occasions: Dunkirk and the Kings death. At first thought the comparison seems irreverently incongruous. Yet the situation was very similar: each of us was momentarily entangled in a perturbation common to all.