'You can only hang me once' - Your Letters: May 12
PICTURE FROM THE ARCHIVE: An evocative image from the Star archives dating back to 2017 and the last running of the Number 4566 train on the Severn Valley Railway. The engine, pictured near Bridgnorth Station, was being taken into the workshop for a boiler inspection that was expected to put it out of action for years.
REALITY OF DEATH PENALTY
There are many contentious viewpoints on the subject of the death penalty and strongly held arguments for and against. However, in debating the subject, there are arguments often used about deterrence that are clearly inaccurate.
Rhetoric – the reporting by the media of claims made that had the death penalty been in place when the Moors murderers had been killing children it would have acted as a deterrent.
Reality – during the period they were carrying out the murders the death penalty was in place. However by the time they were caught in 1965 the death penalty had been abolished.
Hindley and Brady would have been aware that if they were caught they would be hanged, thus it is a clear fact that it did not deter them.
Indeed studies carried out in the 1950s when abolition was being considered showed no evidence that the death penalty acted as a deterrent. There was evidence in several cases that the death penalty as a sentence could result in further murders because having killed the perpetrator might commit further murders, of police officers or civilians, in order to escape capture - the statement used being "you can only hang me once".
Roy Sheward, Wolverhampton
HOW TO SUPPORT CHILDHOOD DAY
Childhood Day is the NSPCC’s national day to fundraise and help keep children safe.
