The Murderer Looked On

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 108, 18 July 1941, Page 5

The Murderer Looked On

"THE evidence called at the trial didn’t amount to much, practically nothing except the motive and the threats. Nevertheless after a retirement of two and a-half hours, the jury returned with a verdict of " Guilty " against one of the accused, with a strong recommendation to mercy. He was thereupon sentenced to death. The good citizens of Manchester,

however, were very firmly of the opinion that the evidence against the prisoner had been too weak to warrant a conviction, and, as a result of their endeavours, the prisoner ultimately was reprieved and the sentence commuted to one of imprisonment for life. You will notice the curious attitude of the official mind, in this, and in many other cases, I’ve told you about. It’s this. They seem

to say " We think there is too much risk about hanging the prisoner, but he can stay in gaol for the rest of his life, Micawber fashion, to see if anything ~ turns up." Fortunately for this boy, after a weary incarceration of two years, something did turn up. Apart from the fact that the conviction constituted an appalling miscarriage of justice, the trial stands out as a notable one in the annals of British justice, by reason of the strange circumstance that the actual murderer wasn’t in the dock at all but was an interested spectator throughout, seated among other curious individuals in the public gallery. This man was Charles Peace. The very next day following his witnessing of this innocent man’s condemnation, Charles Peace committed a second murder. — (" Famous Cases," by a Dunedin Barrister, 4YA, June 23.)