UK DARK TOURIST VISITOR ATTRACTION HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN , GLOUCESTERSHIRE. INFAMOUS “GODMOTHER OF BRITISH CRIME ” LINDA CALVEY aka …”THE BLACK WIDOW”… A NOTORIOUS FORMER ARMED ROBBER, GANGSTER & ALLEGED MURDERER WHO SERVED 18 YEARS IN PRISON FOR A CRIME SHE HAS ALWAYS DENIED COMMITTING … YOU AS VISITORS TO THE JAIL DECIDE FOR YOURSELVES ???

COMING SOON !!!!

ABOVE: FRONT COVER LINDA’S SOON TO BE RELEASED NEW BOOK, PUBLISHED AND RELEASED BY MIRROR BOOKS ON THURSDAY 11 JULY. AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER THROUGH AMAZON & WILL BE AVAILABLE THROUGH ALL GOOD BOOKSHOPS THEREAFTER .

ABOVE AND BELOW : Here’s a couple of pics of Linda Calvey during one of her private visits to view her exhibition here on display at Littledean Jail .

BELOW: ORIGINAL OIL PAINTING BY GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST PAUL BRIDGMAN DEPICTICING  INFAMOUS “GODMOTHER OF BRITISH CRIME ” aka THE BLACK WIDOW, LINDA CALVEY , ALONG WITH HER FORMER HUSBANDS MICKEY CALVEY AND DANNY REECE, ALSO FORMER LOVER RONNIE COOK . THIS PAINTING IS  ON DISPLAY IN AND AMONGST  THE DARK TOURIST ART GALLERY HERE AT THE JAIL.

BELOW: SIGNED COLLAGE PRINT OF LINDA CALVEY, BLACK WIDOW, PERSONALLY SIGNED BY HER. THIS BEING A PRINT OF THE ORIGINAL PAINTING BY PAUL BRIDGMAN , GLOUCESTERSHIRE ARTIST WHICH IS HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL .

ABOVE: ORIGINAL PERSONALLY SIGNED OIL PAINTING ENTITLED ‘TRANQUILITY’ BY LINDA CALVEY. THIS WAS PAINTED FOR LINDA’S MOTHER  WHILST INCARCERATED IN HIGHPOINT PRISON, SUFFOLK  IN NOVEMBER 2002 AS CAN BE SEEN ABOVE.  

Above : “DEADLY WOMEN” … Here is an intriguing short American produced documentary based on the UK’s infamous  Linda Calvey- “The Black Widow”

ABOVE: A PERSONALISED HANDWRITTED AND SIGNED DOODLE SKETCH FROM LINDA INCLUDING HER PRISON NUMBER, HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL.

Linda Calvey is a Londoner with stunning good looks and an attraction to gangsters . Her first husband, gangster Mickey Calvey, died in a Police shoot out after a botched armed robbery, and her second husband, Ronnie Cook, received a 16-year prison sentence for armed robbery in 1981.

While Ronnie is incarcerated, Linda fritters away his stash. Fearing her lover’s reaction on his release, she pays a hitman £10,000 to take care of Cook, but “allegedly ” ends up firing the fatal shot herself ???

Linda Calvey has always vehemently denied this claim !!!!!

ABOVE: A RATHER STRIKINGLY PERSONALLY HAND SIGNED  SEXY IMAGE OF LINDA CALVEY.  PICTURED HERE IN HER PRIME AGED 22 AND PRIOR TO HER ARREST . WOW WHAT A STUNNER !!!(AND STILL A REAL STUNNER TODAY )

 

ABOVE  & BELOW … LINDA CALVEY -THE BLACK WIDOW LEAVES COURT IN A HIGH SECURITY  POLICE VEHICLE DURING HER TRIAL AT THE OLD BAILEY , LONDON IN NOVEMBER 1991 . SHE SERVED 18 YEARS IN VARIOUS WOMEN’S HIGH SECURITY PRISONS FOR A MURDER THAT SHE HAS CONSISTENTLY DENIED COMMITTING

SHE WAS OFFERED A LESSER PRISON SENTENCE BY THE HOME OFFICE IF SHE CONFESSED TO THE MURDER AFTER BEING GIVEN A LIFE SENTENCE. .SHE SUBSEQUENTLY  REFUSED THIS OFFER OUTRIGHT AS SHE HAS ALWAYS MAINTAINED HER INNOCENCE AND THAT SHE HAD BEEN SET-UP ….. HENCE AS A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE SERVED THE FULL 18 YEAR PRISON TERM . 

Original painting by Gloucestershire Artist Paul Bridgman for and on display here at Littledean Jail

ABOVE: LINDA’S WEDDING DAY WORN BASQUE, WHICH SHE WORE WHEN MARRYING CO-ACCUSED MURDERER – DANNY REECE. THE WEDDING TOOK PLACE AT HMP DURHAM, AS CONFIRMED WITH HER HANDWRITTEN LETTER ABOVE, WHICH IS ON DISPLAY HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL   

BELOW:  TABLOID SENSATIONALISM…. THE SUNDAY PEOPLE IN DECEMBER 2006 AIM TO RIDICULE LINDA CALVEY WHILST SHE IS STILL IN PRISON .

BELOW : LINDA CALVEY (THE BLACK WIDOW) …BRITAIN’S NOTORIOUS FORMER FEMALE ARMED ROBBER, GANGSTER AND ALLEGED MURDERESS….WHO SERVED OVER 20 YEARS IN PRISON (18 YEARS OF THESE FOR A MURDER SHE STILL VEHEMENTLY CLAIMS TO THIS DAY SHE DID NOT COMMIT ) ….. SEEN FILMED HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL HAVING A HEAD AND HANDS CAST FOR DISPLAY ( FOR THE LINDA CALVEY – BLACK WIDOW EXHIBITION ) NOW ON PERMANENT DISPLAY AS PART OF THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION .
THESE CASTS HAVING BEEN MADE BY NICK REYNOLDS , SON OF THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY MASTERMIND – BRUCE REYNOLDS

BELOW: LINDA CALVEY WITH ANDY JONES OF THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION  PRESENTING A HANDMADE CUSHION ACQUIRED FROM NOTORIOUS BRITISH SERIAL KILLER ROSE WEST WHILST IMPRISONED TOGETHER AT HMP DURHAM IN 1994 …. NOW ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL ALONG WITH VARIOUS OTHER MEMORABILIA ITEMS KINDLY DONATED FOR HISTORICAL DISPLAY AT THE JAIL .

ABOVE & BELOW : IMAGES OF BOTH SIDES OF THIS CARD AS PERSONALLY DISCRIBED BY LINDA HERSELF IN THE HANDWRITEN AND SIGNED PIECE BELOW

ABOVE AND BELOW : A CHRISTMAS CARD FROM MYRA HINDLEY TO LINDA CALVEY WHILST THEY WERE BOTH IN PRISON, ALONG WITH A HANDWRITTEN AND SIGNED LETTER FROM LINDA CONFIRMING THE ABOVE.

BELOW: A FEW IMAGES TAKEN IN FEBRUARY 2018, OF A RECENT CATCH UP WITH LINDA CALVEY AND ANDY JONES OF THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION DURING A PRIVATE VISIT TO HER HOME.  WHEREUPON SHE ALSO KINDLY ADDED SOME PERSONALLY HAND SIGNED ANNOTATIONS TO VARIOUS EXHIBIT FEATURES FOR DISPLAY IN HER EXHIBITION AREA HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL .

NEWSPAPER FEATURE ON LINDA CALVEY’S MARRIAGE TO GEORGE CEASAR IN 2009 .

SHE VEHEMENTLY DENIES KILLING HER FORMER LOVER RON COOK WHO WAS SHOT AT POINT BLANK RANGE WITH A SHOTGUN AT THE HOME OF LINDA CALVEY, THE CRIME FOR WHICH SHE SERVED A TOTAL OF 18 YEARS IN PRISON .

 SHE CLAIMS SHE WAS AFFORDED THE OPPORTUNITY BY THE HOME OFFICE AUTHORITIES  TO SERVE A LESSER SENTENCE OF 7 YEARS IF SHE CONFESSED TO THIS CRIME .

SHE REFUSED THIS OFFER CLAIMING THAT…. WHY SHOULD SHE CONFESS TO A CRIME SHE NEVER COMMITTED?

 INSTEAD THE HOME OFFICE INCREASED THE TARIFF ON TWO OCCASIONS  TO A TOTAL  18 YEAR LIFE SENTENCE WHICH SHE SERVED IN FULL AS A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE .

COME VISIT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION AND SEE FOR YOURSELVES WHAT LINDA CALVEY HAS TO SAY IN HER OWN WORDS …

Linda Calvey

Linda Calvey is a female murderer and armed robber jailed for killing her lover Ronnie Cook in 1990. She was known as the “Black Widow” because all of her lovers ended up either dead or in prison.^[1]

Previous criminal career

Calvey began her criminal career as a lookout, later becoming a getaway driver and eventually wielding guns herself during robberies.^[2]

Murder of Cook

She paid a hitman Daniel Reece £10,000 to kill Cook. However he lost his nerve at the last minute and Calvey picked up the gun herself shooting the victim at point blank range whilst he kneeled in front of her.^[3]

At the time of her release Calvey was Britain‘s longest serving female prisoner. She spent 18 and a half years in prison for the murder of Cook and had also previously served three and a half years for an earlier robbery.^[4]

In 2002 a book by Kate Kray detailing Calvey’s life and crimes was published

BELOW ARE A NUMBER OF IMAGES OF SOME OF THE PERSONAL EXHIBIT ITEMS BELONGING TO LINDA CALVEY ON DISPLAY HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , IMAGES OF LINDA PICTURED HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL AND AT VARIOUS EVENTS ETC ETC 

Black Widow in freedom bid

ABOVE: Linda Calvey pictured here during a private visit to The Crime Through Time Collection at Littledean Jail in the Forest of Dean , Gloucestershire.

A woman known as the Black Widow who was jailed for life for shooting dead her lover at point-blank range launched a new High Court bid for freedom today.

Lawyers for Linda Calvey asked a judge for permission to challenge Home Secretary David Blunkett’s failure to refer her case to the Parole Board.

Her counsel Alan Newman QC accused Mr Blunkett of acting unlawfully and in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Calvey, 53, who was in court to hear her case argued, has served 12 years of her life sentence and is currently held at Highpoint Prison, Suffolk.

She was convicted in November 1991 of the murder of Ronald Cook.

At her Old Bailey trial the jury was told that Calvey originally hired a hit man, Daniel Reece, for £10,000 to carry out the murder in November 1990.

But he had lost his nerve at the last minute, and she forced Cook to kneel in front of her before carrying out the killing.

Both Calvey and Reece, who was also jailed for life, denied murdering Cook at Calvey’s home in Plaistow, east London, in November 1990.

The trial jury was told Calvey was nicknamed the Black Widow because of her habit of dressing in black after her husband Mickey was shot dead by police in 1978 as he was carrying out an armed robbery.

Today Mr Newman told the court that the trial judge set the minimum period she must serve for retribution and deterrence at seven years – but the then Home Secretary more than doubled the tariff to 15 years in 1993. The tariff was reviewed and reset in 1998.

In November last year, the House of Lords ruled in the case of Anderson that it was incompatible with human rights laws for the Home Secretary to set tariffs for mandatory lifers.

Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights required minimum periods in custody to be set by “an independent and impartial tribunal”.

Following that ruling Ms Calvey asked the Home Office to refer her case to the Parole Board as a matter of urgency, but her request was turned down.

Mr Newman told Mr Justice Jackson, sitting in London, that the Home Secretary’s failure to do so was unreasonable and breached Article 5 of the convention, which guaranteed a prisoner’s right to have their case reassessed if the basis for his or her detention changed.

He said it was “irrelevant” that the Lord Chief Justice had also concluded that the tariff should be 15 years.

Mr Blunkett had taken the view that Ms Calvey would have to wait until she could take advantage of new legislation passing through Parliament dealing with the position of lifers’ tariffs.

But by then she would probably have served the full 15-year tariff, and this would amount to a “cruel punishment” contrary to the 1688 Bill of Rights, said Mr Newman.

He told the judge that the case could affect many other murderers serving life sentences.

Seeking leave to apply for judicial review, he said: “The present application raises important and difficult points of law. Whatever may be the eventual outcome, even if at the end of the day the Secretary of State’s view prevails, this case clearly should be allowed to proceed to a full hearing.”

Would you marry the black widow? Ex-gangster Linda Calvey finds a new fiance

She’s a notorious gangster’s moll and every man who’s fallen for her has ended up dead or in jail. Now she’s finished a 28-year stretch for murder – and found a rich fiance. Has he got more money than sense?

Potentially lethal things, cars. Linda Calvey had a close call with an exploding spark
plug the other day. It left her a little shaken.

‘Afterwards, the guy in the garage told me that I was very lucky the engine did not go up, because I’d have been a gonner,’ she explains, breezy as you like.

Taking a chance: Linda Calvey and husband-to-be George Ceasar, who trusts her implicitly

‘I was telling my friend and she said: “Oh goodness, Linda. It could have been even worse. What if George had been driving and he’d been blown to pieces? You’d have been back inside in no time.” She was right, too. I can see the headlines now: The Black Widow Strikes Again.’

For some reason she seems to find this funny. Even more curiously, George, the man she will marry next year, is rocking with laughter too, tears collecting in his eyes.

Why the hilarity? Surely no sane person — or, at the very least, no lawabiding person — would regard it as funny to be so closely associated with Linda Calvey, behind the wheel or not.

Linda is the stuff of legends

For Linda is the stuff of legends — East End gangster legends, mostly.

In notoriety terms, she is up there with the Krays (indeed, Reggie Kray once proposed to her, which kind of says it all). So did ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser. In glamour terms, she is in a league of her own.

For most of her adult life she has gone by the name of the Black Widow, dubbed so ever since one police officer with whom she’d had dealings pondered the fact that ‘every man she has ever been involved with is either in prison or dead’.

When Myra Hindley died a few years back, Linda — her prison hairdresser, oddly enough — assumed the title of the longest-serving female prisoner in the country.

That 18-year stint was for blasting a former lover to death with a shotgun. Another lover was her co-defendant in the case, and was sent down, too.

They later married behind bars, although — as is so often the way with Linda — it didn’t last.

Her first husband Micky (the one who taught her to be a career criminal — armed robbery to be precise) met a violent end, too, although this was at the hands of the police, who confronted him mid hold-up. That is quite some history to be trailing up the aisle with poor George, who seems like ever such a nice man.

George’s past is squeaky clean

They will marry in the spring with seven — count them! — bridesmaids in tow. Isn’t that a tad excessive for a 60-year-old grandmother getting hitched for the third time? Perhaps.

But then nothing about Linda Calvey was ever understated.

Four months ago, she was released from prison and into the arms of her new love, whom she met while she was on day release.

George Ceasar is a businessman and a part-time ski instructor, and ‘the farthest thing in the world from a gangster’, according to his future wife, who seems almost surprised by this. He drives a red Rolls-Royce (‘bought rather than nicked,’ she grins). His past is squeaky clean, literally. He used to run a successful bleach factory.

‘We were the first people to put bleach in bottles,’ he tells me, proudly.

He should really be the sort of man who would run a mile from Linda Calvey and the criminal underworld she epitomises.

So why, then, is he gazing adoringly at her and bemoaning the peculiarities of the British parole system, in the way that most men of his background would tut-tut at how you can never find a Post Office when you need one.

Gangster Reggie Kray and “Mad” Frankie Fraser both proposed to Linda Calvey

‘Can’t you poison someone in daylight hours?’

George simply cannot believe that his bride-to-be is still subject to ‘barmy’ parole conditions, which mean she cannot spend the night at his — or their, as it is now — home.

‘They have this mad idea that I am in some danger because of her,’ he says, appalled.

‘The prison officers took me aside when I went to visit her, saying: “Be careful.”

‘They implied she might try to kill me, which is nonsense. Even if it were true, do the authorities really think that they are protecting me by allowing her to be here with me only during the day. Can’t you poison someone in daylight hours?

‘It’s just ludicrous, from all angles. Does she seem dangerous to you?’

Erm, well, no. But then, didn’t Harold Shipman’s patients think he was a darling? I pitch up at George’s sprawling 13-room period house in the Kent countryside, hoping to talk to Britain’s most notorious female gangster, and am taken aback by what I find.

Her demeanour — warm, sparky, surprisingly vulnerable, endlessly entertaining — sets the tone for what will be a truly surreal interview.

‘It is the first time I’ve had a Christmas tree in 18 years. Every year I had Christmas
inside, all I could think of was: “I want my own tree.” George wanted to get an artificial one. I said: “No, George — it has to be real. That’s what I’ve dreamed of.” He said: “Well, whatever you want, my dear, you will have.”’

George was smitten from the start

While I try to get the interview under way — remember that the subject matter is murder, armed robbery and organised crime — they bicker about who will make the tea and whether they are going to see Barry Manilow that evening. She wants to go, but he doesn’t.

I feel as though I have stepped into a rather uneasy cross between a Guy Ritchie film and an Ealing comedy. So, how clever is the woman who has been billed as Britain’s most notorious female gangster? On this evidence, extremely. The other inmates called her Ma in prison, and you can see why.

She is attractive. A little brassy, yes — the lead character in Lynda La Plante’s Widows was apparently based on her — but not overly so. She is tactile, engaging and endearing.

George was smitten from the very start. They met in a Medway town when she was on day release from prison two years ago.

‘I was in a restaurant and it was very busy, so she and her friend shared the table with me. We got chatting, and I thought to myself: “Well, this is a lovely lady here”,’ says George.

‘She said she was on a day out. I said: “Oh, an outing?”

‘She said: “No, a day out from prison.”

‘I said: “Blimey. What did you do? It obviously wasn’t something that bad if you’re in an
open prison.”

‘She said: “The thing I went down for was bad, but the point is I didn’t do it. I am innocent.”’

‘She said she didn’t do it, and I believe her’

George — in his mid-Seventies — has had troubles of his own. He tells me that he, too, has been married twice and that his second wife ‘robbed him blind’.

‘You don’t have to be murdered by a woman to be done over by her,’ he says at one
point. He has grown-up children who he never sees. It sounds as though he was lonely when this captivating creature came into his life. Despite the horrific charge list, he brushes over the gangster stuff — even the bits Linda has admitted to.

‘Yes, she was a naughty girl, but haven’t you done anything wrong?’ he asks disingenuously.

He also claims she is the kindest person he has ever met. They decide between themselves that she’s a much nicer person than he is on the grounds that she once gave a cold stranger her own gloves, while such a thing would never occur to George.

Linda was the longest serving female prisoner in the country

It almost seems churlish to bring up more bloody matters and he sighs when I do so.

‘We’ve talked about it all,’ says George. ‘She’s told me what she did do and what she didn’t do. Yes, she did make mistakes, but she told me that on the big one — killing Ron — she didn’t do it, and I believe her. She was stitched up.

‘She has been completely honest with me. After we’d been out on our first date, I sat her down in the living room and said: “I want the truth. I don’t care whether you did
it or not, but I want to know the truth.” She swore she didn’t, and I believe her.’

Linda has always maintained that she did not kill Ronald Cook. She points out that had she professed some guilt she would have been out of jail years ago.

‘They kept me in because I refused to say I did it. But I’ve always held my hands up to what I’ve done. Armed robbery, yes. I’ve done terrible things, things so bad I can hardly believe it myself. But I did not kill Ron, and I will go to my grave saying it.’

‘Men close to me end up dead or in prison… it’s not my fault’

However, in November 1991, a jury decided that she did, and the evidence presented in court was as chilling as Linda’s current set-up is cosy.

Ron had been her lover for several years, but when he went to prison, she turned to several of his friends — also gangsters — for comfort.

Things got complicated, in the sexual and financial sense.

The court heard that, on Ron’s release, Linda was terrified that he would discover she had been unfaithful and had spent the heist money he had stashed away. She allegedly asked another lover, Daniel Reece, to kill him.

An agreement was put in place. Linda collected Ron from prison and drove him to the home they shared. Reece was waiting, but lost his nerve at the crucial moment, leaving Linda to take the shotgun off him and finish the task herself.

Surreally enough, we find ourselves in George’s kitchen when this horrific chapter is broached.

Both are standing as Linda tells her version, effectively re-enacting aspects of that day as she describes how she cowered in a corner as a gunman — the real killer, she says — fired at pointblank range.

The pair of them talk, quite matter-of-factly, about it as Linda puts the kettle on, saying that the Black Widow tag is quite unfair.

‘OK, men close to me came a cropper, but that’s because I associated with gangsters. They end up dead or in prison. That’s life. It’s not my fault.’

‘I liked the lifestyle’

What she fails to do, however, is convey any real sense of remorse — even for the fact that a man she professed to love died in such a manner. Cold-blooded? Barking mad? Or has she just been removed from law-abiding society for so long that she finds such complete moral detachment easy?

What’s interesting is that the only man she talks about with genuine affection is her first husband, Micky — shot dead by armed officers in a botched robbery.

‘I was from a respectable family, no hint of trouble there,’ she says of their meeting.

‘Micky was trouble, but oh so charming with it. Even my mother said: “I can see why you have fallen for him.” He worshipped me, my Micky. He gave me the world. I
didn’t know — honest I didn’t — that most of it was nicked.’

Micky robbed at gunpoint. His team’s jobs were mostly planned in their kitchen, with her making tea and sandwiches, listening in. Learning. She maintains that she got involved in the hard stuff only when Micky died.

‘I kind of just slid in. I started doing some of the driving, then getting more involved. I had children to feed. I liked the lifestyle. Yes. I wasn’t evil, though. I wasn’t.’

She even insists, after a moment’s hesitation, that the guns she carried weren’t even loaded.

Linda Calvey poses for a photo at a Holloway prison party

Tougher than the rest

She clearly hates the police and blames The Establishment, whatever that is, for the death of Micky. But she isn’t nearly as bitter as you might expect about her time in prison.

Again she talks dispassionately about how she survived: it seems to have boiled down to being tougher than all the rest, but never appearing to be tough. Black humour stalks every sentence.

‘When I went to Durham, I said I wouldn’t talk to anyone who had killed a child. The wardens said: “Well, you’ll not be talking to many people here then. They are all
murderers.” ’

She struck up a bizarre relationship with Myra Hindley. She says they weren’t friends, but they were close enough that Linda dyed Hindley’s hair regularly. She clearly
doesn’t put herself in the same criminal, morally deficient class, though.

‘Myra never regretted what she had done. I was often shocked by her. I remember when I was working in the prison library she came in and asked to order a book, but she wanted me to put it in the name of another girl, who never came into the library. I asked what book. It was The Devil And His Works. She got it, too.

George looks on — fascinated rather than horrified — as she chats away about somehow finding herself in the same prison wing as one of the most notorious female killers of our time.

‘I missed seeing my grandchildren grow up’

Is there remorse on her part? Yes, undoubtedly so — although mostly for herself and her loved ones.

‘I did not kill Ron and should not have done that sentence, but I know full well that it was my lifestyle that put me in prison for that murder, and that is a terrible thing to live with.

‘All my grandchildren were born when I was inside. I haven’t seen any of them grow up, and they never had a granny.

‘One day, one of them had to write in school about what they did at the weekend. My granddaughter wrote: “We went to see Granny and I got tickled by the policeman and
then we went swimming.” She meant she’d been frisked coming to the prison to see me. That floors you, you know.’

‘Mate, she saw you coming’

She seems close to tears. George pats her arm and talks about how they could put another Christmas tree in the hallway, if she wants.

I wonder if her realizes that most people will look at him and conclude that George, with his red Rolls-Royce, his big empty house and his ability to see the best in people and conclude: ‘Mate, she saw you coming.’

Have they considered a prenuptial agreement?

‘I’ve said I would sign one,’ Linda says sharply, but George shakes his head in distaste.

‘You can’t go into a marriage thinking like that. You have to trust people. Life’s a gamble, but if you lose trust, what have you got? So, she might kill me. Well, hell, I’ll
take the chance.’

Next spring — “If I last that long,” quips George — those wedding bells will ring. Linda is already thinking about flowers and cakes.

As I leave, she skips off to fetch me some of the cake decorations she learned to make in prison.

They are truly remarkable: tiny flowers, berries and leaves, made out of icing, but impossible to tell from the real thing, even up close.

The woman has a rare, impressive — and deeply disturbing — talent for leaving you wondering what is real and what is fake.

 

DAILY MAIL NEWS REPORT 6 SEPTEMBER 2016 ….

Has the curse of the Black Widow struck again? Notorious gangster’s moll Linda Calvey is single once more after third husband, 84, dies in Spanish hospital

• George Ceasar passed away over the weekend, leaving Calvey a widow
• Policeman once mused all Calvey’s husbands end up dead or behind bars 
• But Ceasar was confident his younger wife was not going to ‘bump him off’
• Friend says Calvey is concerned people may not think she is a gold-digger 

A killer known as the Black Widow is single again following the death of her third husband – but a close friend has insisted it has nothing to do with her infamous track record for losing spouses.

Linda Calvey – who was given her nickname after after one police officer mused ‘every man she has ever been involved with is either in prison or dead’ – is mourning the passing of Goerge Ceasar, 84, in a Spanish hospital this weekend.

The couple had been married five years and, despite Ceasar’s advanced age and ill-health, Calvey is said to be bracing herself for an adverse reaction from critics

 

PICTURED HERE ABOVE IS LINDA’S FIRST HUSBAND MICKY WHO WAS SHOT DEAD BY A POLICE MARKSMAN

The friend said: ‘She dreads imagining the wrong conclusions people will now leap to, especially as cynics warned when she married him it was for his money, which wasn’t true.

 

‘The reality is that despite being a tough old boy, George simply passed away from a combination of illness and old age. Linda had nothing to do with his death.

‘It’s sad but that’s life.’

Calvey’s first husband was shot dead by police marksman, and the second, who she divorced, is serving life for murder, see below

Above: Second husband : marrying Danny Reece in Durham’s prison chapel in 1995 . He is still serving a life sentence

She served 18-and-a-half years in jail – the longest time behind bars by any woman in Britain – after shooting a former lover dead.

But Ceasar, who was 17 years her senior, seemed unworried by her reputation.

At his and Calvey’s lavish white wedding five years ago, the law abiding tycoon joked of his willingness to take a chance on ‘Linda not bumping me off’.

However, it is said he recently told friends that ‘marrying Linda was the worst mistake of my life’ – while Calvey hinted at a possible divorce.

‘Unlike George she wasn’t prepared to sit around at home in God’s waiting room day in day out. She spent a third of her life locked-up and when she was released she needed to be out and about,’ said the friend.

Ceasar, who left the UK to live in Spain for health reasons last winter, had spent a month in hospital near Benidorm, Costa Blanca, surrounded by Calvey’s family and friends.

The former ski instructor – who was given the last rites by a priest last week – left instructions for his ashes to be scattered on his favourite mountainside in Switzerland.

But Calvey was not at his side when he passed away as she is still subject to parole orders including travel restrictions, lives in Basildon, Essex.

Calvey, who rejected marriage proposals from villains Reggie Kray and ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser between husbands, was immortalised in the hit TV series, apltly named ‘Widows,’ by Lynda La Plante but she scoffed at claims she had made £1million from her crimes.

Her first husband Micky was shot dead by the Flying Squad in a bungled raid on a London supermarket in 1978.

She later wed hitman Danny Reece, who helped her kill her then boyfriend, Ronnie Cook in 1990.

Then, while Reece was still in jail for the murder, she asked him for a divorce to wed George.

They had first met by chance in a crowded pub in Canterbury, Kent, close to the prison where she was being prepared for release.

Ceaser asked her if she was enjoying a shopping trip in town, to which she replied: ‘Yes, but I’m from the jail down the road.’

Above: Linda with her boyfriend Ronnie Cook who she was alleged to have shot dead in cold blood .

As their friendship blossomed, he regularly visited her at HMP East Sutton Park and she confessed to him hat while she had ‘done many bad things in life’ she was not a murderer – despite the Old Bailey’s damning verdict.

Calvey has always maintained she was innocent, but jurors heard how she snatched the shotgun from Reece after he had bungled Cook’s killing, and finished him off herself.

On jail visit before her release in 2008, a concerned prison officer took besotted George aside and warned him: ‘Beware, she kills her men, you know..’

But the friend said this week: ‘Okay, the men close to Linda always came croppers but that’s because she associates with gangsters. Yes, they end up dead or in jail but it isn’t her fault.’

The friend said that she was braced for a backlash over George’s death from doubters who claimed she had only wed him for his bank balance.

Calvey had spent so long in jail that when she left her cell, her State pension amounted to only 11p a week.

‘Despite their differences, Linda greatly respected George, who was the kindest man she had ever known. She will miss him but she was never a gold digger.

 

 

NETFLIX UK DARK TOURIST ATTRACTION HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION, LITTLEDEAN JAIL, FOREST OF DEAN, GLOUCESTERSHIRE….CORPORAL PUNISHMENT THROUGH THE AGES ALONG WITH A BRIEF INSIGHT INTO PRESENT DAY CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS TOO…. IT’S ALL HERE AND MORE …

ABOVE: A VERY EARLY POSTCARD IMAGE OF LITTLEDEAN GAOL,SPELT HERE IN THE OLD FASHION WAY .

  IT WAS ALSO FORMERLY USED AS A  “HOUSE OF CORRECTION “, LATER TO BECOME A POLICE STATION,COURTHOUSE AND NOW  IS THE HOME OF THE INFAMOUS CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION .

ABOVE: Original Victorian 3-handcuffed leather body belt and original leather bound handcuffs

ABOVE : EARLY VICTORIAN LITTLE DEAN PRISON WARDEN/GUARD TUNIC BUTTON ( A VERY RARE FIND FOR SURE ) 

Possibly of little significance to visitors …. however I love this item which has been recently discovered and acquired for display here . Intriguingly this early Victorian Prison Warden/Guard tunic button is worded LITTLE DEAN (AS TWO WORDS) WITH PRISON BENEATH (INSTEAD OF GAOL )  … as opposed to it’s early title as having been “Littledean Gaol”.

BELOW: ORIGINAL VICTIORAN STRAIGHT JACKET THAT WAS FOUND IN LITTLEDEAN JAIL’S ATTIC SPACE BY BUILDERS DURING RENOVATION WORK BACK IN 1986 AND SUBSEQUENTLY DONATED TO THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION FOR PERMANENT DISPLAY HERE AT THE JAIL 

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT THROUGH THE AGES AS WELL AS AN INSIGHT INTO PRESENT DAY CORPORAL PUNISHMENTS TOO, AS FEATURED AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION  HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL 

ABOVE :AN ARRAY OF VARIOUS 19TH CENTURY HANDCUFFS, RESTRAINTS AND LEG IRONS HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL .

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN MALAYSIA FOR RAPE, ARMED ROBBERY , DRUGS ETC 

ORIGINAL EARLY 16TH- 17TH CENTURY HANDMADE OAK  “VILLAGE PUNISHMENT  STOCKS” RESTORED IN THE 19TH CENTURY WITH ADDITIONAL SUPPORTING IRONWORK AND PRESERVED FOR POSTERITY ….. AS CAN NOW BE SEEN AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL,LITTLEDEAN, FOREST OF DEAN, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UK

VILLAGE STOCKS 

Stocks are devices used in the internationally, in medieval, Renaissance and colonial American times as a form of physical punishment involving public humiliation. The stocks partially immobilized its victims and they were often exposed in a public place such as the site of a market to the scorn of those who passed by. Since the purpose of putting offenders in the stocks was to expose them to ridicule and mockery, passers-by were encouraged to throw mud, rotten eggs, moldy fruit and vegetables, smelly fish, offal, and excrement (both animal and human) at those being punished.

ABOVE AND BELOW : WITCHES DUCKING STOOL  AND LIFTING PULLY  ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL

VARIOUS EARLY VICTORIAN LEATHER BOUND WHIPS AND CAT O’NINE TAILS USED WITHIN UK PRISONS ….. HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL

VARIOUS WHIPS, CAT O’NINE TAILS , BLUDGEON AND LEATHER BOUND HANDCUFFS  USED WITHIN UK PRISONS HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL 

VARIOUS EARLY VICTORIAN LEATHER BOUND WHIPS AND CAT O’NINE TAILS USED WITHIN UK PRISONS ….. HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL

CLOSE-UP IMAGE OF ROUND HANDLED LEATHER BOUND EARLY VICTORIAN WHIP USED WITHIN UK PRISONS 

AS ABOVE

EARLY VICTORIAN BLACK CLOTH BOUND, ROUND HANDLED CAT O’NINE TAILS USED IN UK PRISONS

AS ABOVE

EARLY VICTORIAN FLAT HANDLED CAT O’NINE TAILS USED IN UK PRISONS

AS ABOVE

CLOSE UP IMAGE OF VICTORIAN LEATHER BOUND HAND RESTRIANTS AS USED HERE AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL 

AS ABOVE

EARLY VICTORIAN LEATHER BOUND BODY RESTRAINT WITH ATTACHED HAND CUFFS USED IN UK PRISONS AND NOW ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL

CLOSE UP OF ABOVE

CLOSE UP OF ABOVE

AS ABOVE

AS ABOVE

AS ABOVE

AS ABOVE

AS ABOVE

BELOW : ORIGINAL 1930’s LEATHER BODY BELT RESTRAINT COMPLETE WITH WRIST RESTRAINTS ACQUIRED FROM THE MONICA BRITTON MUSEUM COLLECTION AT FRENCHAY HOSPITAL , BRISTOL AND NOW ON DISPLAY HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL , GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UK

BELOW: ORIGINAL 1930’s LEATHER RESTRAINT STRAPS ACQUIRED FROM THE MONICA BRITTON MUSEUM COLLECTION AT FRENCHAY HOSPITAL , BRISTOL AND NOW ON DISPLAY HERE AT THE CRIME THROUGH TIME COLLECTION , LITTLEDEAN JAIL , GLOUCESTERSHIRE, UK

PRISON WARDEN INSCRIBED 18TH CENTURY TRUNCHEON AND EARLY VICTORIAN BODY RESTRAINT BELT HERE ON DISPLAY

INSCRIBED GEORGE 1ST PRISON WARDEN TRUNCHEON HERE ON DISPLAY AT LITTLEDEAN JAIL

EARLY VICTORIAN BLUDGEON USED IN UK PRISONS …. HERE ON DISPLAY AT THE JAIL WITH PRISON WARDEN TRUNCHEON AND HIATT STEEL HANDCUFFS

EARLY VICTORIAN BLUDGEON  USED IN UK PRISONS

CLOSE-UP OF HIATT STEEL HANDCUFFS

corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable. The term usually refers to methodically striking the offender with an implement, whether in judicial, domestic, or educational settings.

Corporal punishment may be divided into three main types:

• Parental or domestic corporal punishment: within the family—typically, children punished by parents or guardians;
• School corporal punishment: within schools, when students are punished by teachers or school administrators, or, in the past, apprentices by master craftsmen;
• Judicial corporal punishment: as part of a criminal sentence ordered by a court of law. Closely related is prison corporal punishment, ordered either directly by the prison authorities or by a visiting court.

Corporal punishment of minors within domestic settings is lawful in all 50 of the United States and, according to a 2000 survey, is widely approved by parents.^[1]It has been officially outlawed in 29 countries.^[2]

Corporal punishment in school is still legal in some parts of the world, including 20 of the States of the USA, but has been outlawed in other places, including Canada, Kenya, Japan, South Africa, New Zealand, and nearly all of Europe except the Czech Republic^[3] and France.^[4]

Judicial corporal punishment has virtually disappeared from the western world but remains in force in many parts of Africa and Asia.

Contents [hide] 1 History of corporal punishment 2 Modern use 2.1 Corporal punishment in the home 2.2 Corporal punishment in schools 2.3 Judicial or quasi-judicial punishment 2.4 Pros and cons of corporal punishment 3 Anatomical target 4 Ritual and punishment 4.1 Corporal punishment, paraphilia and fetishism 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

History of corporal punishment

The practice was recorded as early as c. 10th Century BC in Book of Proverbs attributed to Solomon:

He that spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes.^[5]
Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.^[6]

It was certainly present in classical civilisations, being used in Greece, Rome, and Egypt for both judicial and educational discipline.^[7] Some states gained a reputation for using such punishments cruelly; Sparta, in particular, used them as part of a disciplinary regime designed to build willpower and physical strength.^[8] Although the Spartan example was extreme, corporal punishment was possibly the most frequent type of punishment. In the Roman Empire, the maximum penalty that a Roman citizen could receive under the law was 40 “lashes” or “strokes” with a whip applied to the back and shoulders, or with the “fasces” (similar to a birch rod, but consisting of 8–10 lengths of willow rather than birch) applied to the buttocks. Such punishments could draw blood, and were frequently inflicted in public.

In Medieval Europe, corporal punishment was encouraged by the attitudes of the medieval church towards the human body, flagellation being a common means of self-discipline. This had an influence on the use of corporal punishment in schools, as educational establishments were closely attached to the church during this period. Nevertheless, corporal punishment was not used uncritically; as early as the eleventh century Saint Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury was speaking out against what he saw as the excessive use of corporal punishment in the treatment of children.^[9]

From the 16th century onwards, new trends were seen in corporal punishment. Judicial punishments were increasingly turned into public spectacles, with public beatings of criminals intended as a deterrent to other would-be offenders. Meanwhile, early writers on education, such as Roger Ascham, complained of the arbitrary manner in which children were punished.^[10] Perhaps the most influential writer on the subject was the English philosopher John Locke, whose Some Thoughts Concerning Education explicitly criticised the central role of corporal punishment in education. Locke’s work was highly influential, and may have helped influence Polish legislators to ban corporal punishment from Poland’s schools in 1783.^[11]

During the 18th century, the concept of corporal punishment was attacked by some philosophers and legal reformers. Merely inflicting pain on miscreants was seen as inefficient, influencing the subject only for a short period of time and effecting no permanent change in their behaviour. Some believed that the purpose of punishment should be reformation, not retribution. This is perhaps best expressed in Jeremy Bentham’s idea of a panoptic prison, in which prisoners were controlled and surveyed at all times, perceived to be advantageous in that this system supposedly reduced the need of measures such as corporal punishment.^[12]

A consequence of this mode of thinking was a reduction in the use of corporal punishment in the 19th century in Europe and North America. In some countries this was encouraged by scandals involving individuals seriously hurt during acts of corporal punishment. For instance, in Britain, popular opposition to punishment was encouraged by two significant cases, the death of Private Frederick John White, who died after a military flogging in 1846,^[13] and the death of Reginald Cancellor, who was killed by his schoolmaster in 1860.^[14] Events such as these mobilised public opinion, and in response, many countries introduced thorough regulation of the infliction of corporal punishment in state institutions such as schools, prisons and reformatories.

In the 1870s, courts in the United States overruled the common-law principle that a husband had the right to “physically chastise an errant wife”.^[15] In the UK the traditional right of a husband to inflict moderate corporal punishment on his wife in order to keep her “within the bounds of duty” was similarly removed in 1891.^[16][17] See Domestic violence for more information.

In the United Kingdom, the use of judicial corporal punishment declined during the first half of the 20th century and it was abolished altogether in 1948, while most other European countries had abolished it earlier. Meanwhile in many schools, the use of the cane, paddle or tawse remained commonplace in the UK and the United States until the 1980s. In several other countries, it still is: seeSchool corporal punishment.

Modern use

Corporal punishment in the home

Main article: Corporal punishment in the home

Domestic corporal punishment, i.e. of children and teenagers by their parents, is usually referred to colloquially as “spanking“, “whipping“, “smacking,” or “slapping.” One possible method of spanking is to have the child or teenager lying, stomach down, across the parent’s lap, with the parent bringing their open hand down upon the child’s buttocks. Alternatively, the youngster might be told to bend over, or lie face down across a bed.^[18] Spankings may be delivered over the trousers, over the undergarments, or upon the bare buttocks.^[19]

In an increasing number of countries it has been outlawed, starting with Sweden in 1979.^[2] In some other countries, corporal punishment is legal, but restricted (e.g. blows to the head are outlawed and implements may not be used, and/or only children within a certain age range may be spanked).

In the United States and all African and most Asian nations, “spanking,” “whipping,” “smacking,” or “slapping” by parents is currently legal; it is also legal to use certain implements such as a belt or paddle.

In Canada, spanking by parents or legal guardians (but nobody else) is legal, as long as the child is not under 2 years or over 12 years of age, and no implement other than an open, bare hand is used (belts, paddles, etc. are strictly prohibited). Provinces can legally impose tighter restrictions than the aforementioned national restrictions, but none currently does so.

In the UK, spanking or smacking is legal, but it may not leave a mark on the body and in Scotland since October 2003 it has been illegal to use any implements when disciplining a child.

In Pakistan, Section 89 of Pakistan Penal Code allows corporal punishment. The Government of Pakistan has yet to repeal this law.^[20]

Corporal punishment in schools

Main article: School corporal punishment

Legal corporal punishment of school students for misbehaviour involves striking the student on the buttocks or the palm of the hand in a premeditated ceremony with an implement specially kept for the purpose such as a rattan cane or spanking paddle, or with the open hand.

Judicial or quasi-judicial punishment

Main article: Judicial corporal punishment

  Countries with judicial corporal punishment

Some countries retain judicial corporal punishment, including a number of former British territories such as Botswana, Malaysia, Singapore and Tanzania. In Malaysia and Singapore, for certain specified offences, males are routinely sentenced to caning in addition to a prison term. The Singaporean practice of caning became much discussed around the world in 1994 when American teenager Michael P. Fay was caned for vandalism.

A number of countries with an Islamic legal system, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sudan and northern Nigeria, employ judicial whipping for a range of offences. As of 2009, some regions of Pakistan are experiencing a breakdown of law and government, leading to a reintroduction of corporal punishment by ad hocIslamicist courts.^[21] As well as corporal punishment, some Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran use other kinds of physical penalties such asamputation or mutilation.^[22][23][24] However, the term “corporal punishment” has since the 19th century usually meant caning, flogging or whipping rather than those other types of physical penalty.^{[25][26][27][28][29][30][31]}

Pros and cons of corporal punishment

Main articles: Corporal punishment in the home#Differing views about parental spanking and School corporal punishment#Justification and criticism

See also: Campaigns against corporal punishment

According to its proponents, corporal punishment offers several advantages over other kinds of punishment, such as that it is quicker to implement, costs nothing, and deters unruliness.^[32][33]

The American Psychological Association opposes the use of corporal punishment in schools, juvenile facilities, child care nurseries, and all other institutions, public or private, where children are cared for or educated. It claims that corporal punishment is violent and unnecessary, may lower self-esteem, and is liable to instil hostility and rage without reducing the undesired behaviour. The APA also states that corporal punishment is likely to train children to use physical violence.^[34]

The professor of philosophy, David Benatar, points out that using this last argument, fining people also teaches that forcing others to give up some of their property is an acceptable response to unwanted behaviour in others. “Why don’t detentions, imprisonments, fines, and a multitude of other punishments convey equally undesirable messages?” According to Benatar, the key difference lies in the legitimacy of the authority administering the punishment: “[T]here is all the difference in the world between legitimate authorities—the judiciary, parents, or teachers—using punitive powers responsibly to punish wrongdoing, and children or private citizens going around beating each other, locking each other up, and extracting financial tributes (such as lunch money). There is a vast moral difference here and there is no reason why children should not learn about it. Punishing children when they do wrong seems to be one important way of doing this.”^[35]

Kay Hymowitz in her book, Who Killed Discipline in School? states, “Ask Americans what worries them most about public schools and the answer might surprise you; discipline. For several decades now, poll after poll shows it topping the list of parents’ concerns. Hymowitz says that, “the public’s sense that something has gone drastically wrong with school discipline isn’t mistaken. Over the past thirty years or so, the courts and federal government have hacked away at the power of educators to maintain a safe and civil school environment.”^[36]

Anatomical target

Different parts of the anatomy may be targeted:

• The buttocks, whether clothed or bare, have often been targeted for punishment, particularly in Europe and the English-speaking world.^[28] Indeed, some languages have a specific word for their chastisement: spanking in English, fessée in French, nalgada in Spanish (both Romanesque words directly derived from the word for buttock). The advantage is that these fleshy body parts are robust and can be chastised accurately, without endangering any bodily functions; they heal well and relatively quickly; in some cultures punishment applied to the buttocks entails a degree of humiliation, which may or may not be intended as part of the punishment.
• Chastising the back of the thighs and calves, as sometimes in South Korean schools, is at least as painful if not more so, but this can cause more damage in terms of scars and bruising.
• The upper back and the shoulders have historically been a target for whipping, e.g. in the UK with the cat-o’-nine-tails in the Royal Navy and in some pre-1948 judicial punishments, and also today generally in the Middle East and the Islamic world.
• The head is a very dangerous place to hit, especially “boxing the ears“.
• The hand is very sensitive and delicate, and use of an implement could cause excessive damage.^[37]
• The soles of the feet are extremely sensitive, and flogging them (falaka), as has been sometimes done in the Middle East, is excruciating.

Ritual and punishment

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2007)

Corporal punishment in official settings, such as schools and prisons, has typically been carried out as a formal ceremony, with a standard procedure, emphasising the solemnity of the occasion. It may even be staged in a ritual manner in front of other students/inmates, in order to act as a deterrent to others.

In the case of prison or judicial punishments, formal punishment might begin with the offender stripped of some or all of their clothing and secured to a piece of furniture, such as a trestle or frame,^[38][39](X-cross), punishment horse or falaka. In some cases the nature of the offence is read out and the sentence (consisting of a predetermined number of strokes) is formally imposed. A variety of implements may be used to inflict blows on the offender. The terms used to describe these are not fixed, varying by country and by context. There are, however, a number of common types that are encountered when reading about corporal punishment. These include:

• The rod. A thin, flexible rod is often called a switch.
• The birch, a number of strong, flexible branches of birch or similar wood, bound together with twine into a single implement.
• The rattan cane (not bamboo as it is often wrongly described). Much favoured in the British Commonwealth for both school and judicial use.
• The paddle, a flat wooden board with a handle, with or without holes. Used in US schools.
• The strap. A leather strap with a number of tails at one end, called a tawse, was used in schools in Scotland and some parts of northern England.
• The whip, typically of leather. Varieties include the Russian knout and South African sjambok, in addition to the scourge and the French martinet.
• The cat o’ nine tails was used in British naval discipline and as a judicial and prison punishment.
• The hairbrush and belt were traditionally used in the United States and Britain as an implement for domestic spanking.
• The plimsoll or gym shoe, used in British and Commonwealth schools, often called “the slipper”. See Slippering (punishment).
• The ferula, in Jesuit schools, as vividly described in a scene in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

In some instances the offender is required to prepare the implement himself. For instance, sailors were employed in preparing the cat o’ nine tails that would be used upon their own back, while school students were sometimes sent out to cut a switch or rod.

In contrast, informal punishments, particularly in domestic settings, tend to lack this ritual nature and are often administered with whatever object comes to hand. It is common, for instance, for belts, wooden spoons, slippers, hairbrushes or coathangers to be used in domestic punishment, while rulers and other classroom equipment have been used in schools.

In parts of England, boys were once beaten under the old tradition of “Beating the Bounds” whereby a boy was paraded around the edge of a city or parish and would be spanked with a switch or cane to mark the boundary.^[40] One famous “Beating the Bounds” took place around the boundary of St Giles and the area where Tottenham Court Road now stands in central London. The actual stone that separated the boundary is now underneath the Centre Point office tower.^[41]

Corporal punishment, paraphilia and fetishism

The German psychologist Richard von Krafft-Ebing suggested that a tendency to sadism and masochism may develop out of the experience of children receiving corporal punishment at school.^[42] But this was disputed by Sigmund Freud, who found that, where there was a sexual interest in beating or being beaten, it developed in early childhood, and rarely related to actual experiences of punishment.^[43]

Capital punishment in the United Kingdom was used from the creation of the state in 1707 until the practice was abolished in the twentieth century. The last executions in the United Kingdom, by hanging, took place in 1964, prior to capital punishment being abolished for murder (in 1969 in Great Britain and in 1973 in Northern Ireland). Although not applied since, the death penalty remained on the statute book for certain other offences until 1998.^[1]

Sir Samuel Romilly, speaking to the House of Commons on capital punishment in 1810, declared that “…(there is) no country on the face of the earth in which there [have] been so many different offences according to law to be punished with death as in England.”^{[citation needed]} Known as the “Bloody Code“, at its height the criminal law included some 220 crimes punishable by death, including “being in the company of Gypsies for one month”, “strong evidence of malice in a child aged 7–14 years of age” and “blacking the face or using a disguise whilst committing a crime”. Many of these offences had been introduced to protect the property of the wealthy classes that emerged during the first half of the 18th century, a notable example being the Black Act of 1723, which created 50 capital offences for various acts of theft and poaching.Background

Whilst executions for murder, burglary and robbery were common, the death sentences for minor offenders were often not carried out. However, children were commonly executed for such minor crimes as stealing. A sentence of death could be commuted or respited (permanently postponed) for reasons such as benefit of clergy, official pardons, pregnancy of the offender or performance of military or naval duty.^[2] Between 1770 and 1830, 35,000 death sentences were handed down in England and Wales, but only 7,000 executions were carried out.^[3]

There were prisons, but they were mostly small, old and badly-run. Common punishments included transportation — sending the offender to America, Australia or Van Diemens Land (Tasmania), or execution — hundreds of offences carried the death penalty. By the 1830s people were having doubts about both these punishments. The answer was prison: lots of new prisons were built and old ones extended. The Victorians also had clear ideas about what these prisons should be like. They should be unpleasant places, so as to deter people from committing crimes. Once inside, prisoners had to be made to face up to their own faults, by keeping them in silence and making them do hard, boring work. Walking a treadwheel or picking oakum (separating strands of rope) were the most common forms of hard labour.

Reform

In 1808 Romilly had the death penalty removed for pickpockets and lesser offenders, starting a process of reform that continued over the next 50 years. The death penalty was mandatory (although it was frequently commuted by the government) until the Judgement of Death Act 1823 gave judges the power to commute the death penalty except for treason and murder. The Punishment of Death, etc. Act 1832 reduced the number of capital crimes by two-thirds. Gibbeting was abolished in 1832 and hanging in chains was abolished in 1834. In 1861, several acts of Parliament (24 & 25 Vict; c. 94 to c. 100) further reduced the number of civilian capital crimes to five: murder, treason, espionage, arson in royal dockyards, and piracy with violence; there were other offences under military law. The death penalty remained mandatory for treason and murder unless commuted.

The Royal Commission on Capital Punishment 1864-1866 ^[4] concluded (with dissenting Commissioners) that there was not a case for abolition but recommended an end to public executions. This proposal was included in the Capital Punishment Amendment Act 1868. From then executions in Great Britain were carried out in prison. The practice of beheading and quartering executed traitors stopped in 1870.^[5]

Juveniles under 16 could no longer be executed from 1908 under the Children Act 1908. In 1922 a new offence of Infanticide was introduced to replace the charge of murder for mothers killing their children in the first year of life. In 1930 a parliamentary Select Committee recommended that capital punishment be suspended for a trial period of five years, but no action was taken. From 1931 pregnant women could no longer be hanged (following the birth of their child) although in practice since the 18th century their sentences had always been commuted, and in 1933 the minimum age for capital punishment was raised to 18 under the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. The last known execution by the civilian courts of a person under 18 was that of Charles Dobel, 17, hanged atMaidstone together with his accomplice William Gower, 18, in January 1889.

In 1938 the issue of the abolition of capital punishment was brought before parliament. A clause within the Criminal Justice Bill called for an experimental five-year suspension of the death penalty. When war broke out in 1939 the bill was postponed. It was revived after the war and to everyone’s surprise was adopted by a majority in the House of Commons (245 to 222). In the House of Lords the abolition clause was defeated but the remainder of the bill was passed. Popular support for abolition was absent and the government decided that it would be inappropriate for it to assert its supremacy by invoking the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 over such an unpopular issue.

Instead, then Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede, set up a new Royal Commission (the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, 1949–1953) with instructions to determine “whether the liability to suffer capital punishment should be limited or modified”. The Commission’s report discussed a number of alternatives to execution by hanging (including the US methods of electrocution and gassing, and the then-theoretical lethal injection), but rejected them. It had more difficulty with the principle of capital punishment. Popular opinion believed that the death penalty acted as a deterrent to criminals, but the statistics within the report were inconclusive. Whilst the report recommended abolition from an ethical standpoint, it made no mention of possible miscarriages of justice. The public had by then expressed great dissatisfaction with the verdict in the case of Timothy Evans, who was tried and hanged for murdering his baby daughter in 1949. It later transpired in 1953 that John Christie had strangled at least six women in the same house; if the jury in Evans’s trial had known this, Evans would probably not have been found guilty. There were other cases in the same period where doubts arose over convictions and subsequent hangings, such as the notorious case of Derek Bentley.

The Commission concluded that unless there was overwhelming public support in favour of abolition, the death penalty should be retained.

Between 1900 and 1949, 621 men and 11 women were executed in England and Wales. Ten German agents were executed during the First World War under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914,^[6] and 16 spies were executed during the Second World War under the Treachery Act 1940.^[7]

By 1957 a number of controversial cases highlighted the issue of capital punishment again. Campaigners for abolition were partially rewarded with the Homicide Act 1957. The Act brought in a distinction between capital and non-capital homicide. Only six categories of murder were now punishable by execution:

• in the course or furtherance of theft
• by shooting or causing an explosion
• while resisting arrest or during an escape
• of a police officer
• of a prison officer by a prisoner
• the second of two murders committed on different occasions (if both done in Great Britain).

The police and the government were of the opinion that the death penalty deterred offenders from carrying firearms and it was for this reason that such offences remained punishable by death.

Abolition

The only known photograph of the death sentence being pronounced in England and Wales, for the poisoner Frederick Seddon in 1912^[8]

Murder

In 1965 the Labour MP Sydney Silverman, who had committed himself to the cause of abolition for more than 20 years, introduced a private member’s bill to suspend the death penalty, which was passed on a free vote in the House of Commons by 200 votes to 98. The bill was subsequently passed by the House of Lords by 204 votes to 104.

The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 suspended the death penalty in England, Wales and Scotland (but not in Northern Ireland) for murder for a period of five years, and substituted a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment; it further provided that if, before the expiry of the five-year suspension, each House of Parliament passed a resolution to make the effect of the Act permanent, then it would become permanent. In 1969 the Home Secretary, James Callaghan, proposed a motion to make the Act permanent, which was carried in the Commons on 16 December 1969,^[9] and a similar motion was carried in the Lords on 18 December.^[10] The death penalty for murder was abolished in Northern Ireland on 25 July 1973 under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973.

Following the abolition of the death penalty for murder, the House of Commons held a vote during each subsequent parliament until 1997 to restore the death penalty. This motion was always defeated, but the death penalty still survived for other crimes:

1. causing a fire or explosion in a naval dockyard, ship, magazine or warehouse (until 1971);
2. espionage^[11] (until 1981);
3. piracy with violence (until 1998);
4. treason (until 1998); and
5. certain purely military offences under the jurisdiction of the armed forces, such as mutiny^[12] (until 1998). Prior to its complete abolition in 1998, it was available for six offences:
   1. serious misconduct in action;
   2. assisting the enemy;
   3. obstructing operations;
   4. giving false air signals;
   5. mutiny or incitement to mutiny; and
   6. failure to suppress a mutiny with intent to assist the enemy.

However no executions were carried out in the United Kingdom for any of these offences, after the abolition of the death penalty for murder.

Nevertheless, there remained a working gallows at HMP Wandsworth, London, until 1994, which was tested every six months until 1992. This gallows is now housed in the Galleries of Justice inNottingham.^[13]

Last executions

England and in the United Kingdom: on 13 August 1964, Peter Anthony Allen, at Walton Prison in Liverpool, and Gwynne Owen Evans, at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, were executed for the murder of John Alan West on 7 April that year.^[14]

Scotland: Henry John Burnett, 21, on 15 August 1963 in Craiginches Prison, Aberdeen, for the murder of seaman Thomas Guyan.

Northern Ireland: Robert McGladdery, 25, on 20 December 1961 in Crumlin Road Gaol, Belfast, for the murder of Pearl Gamble.

Wales: Vivian Teed, 24, in Swansea on 6 May 1958, for the murder of William Williams, sub-postmaster of Fforestfach Post Office.^[15]

Last death sentences

Northern Ireland and in the United Kingdom: William Holden in 1973 in Northern Ireland, for the capital murder of a British soldier during the Troubles. Holden was removed from the death cell in May 1973.^[16]

England: David Chapman, who was sentenced to hang in November 1965 for the murder of a swimming pool nightwatchman in Scarborough. He was released from prison in 1979 and later died in a car accident.

Scotland: Patrick McCarron in 1964 for shooting his wife. He hanged himself in prison in 1970.

Wales: Edgar Black, who was reprieved on 6 November 1963. He had shot his wife’s lover in Cardiff.

Final abolition

The Criminal Damage Act 1971 abolished the offence of arson in royal dockyards.

The Naval Discipline Act 1957 reduced the scope of capital espionage from “all spies for the enemy” to spies on naval ships or bases.^[17] Later, the Armed Forces Act 1981 abolished the death penalty for espionage.^[18] (The Official Secrets Act 1911 had created another offence of espionage which carried a maximum sentence of fourteen years.)

Beheading was abolished as a method of execution for treason in 1973.^[19] However hanging remained available until 1998 when, under a House of Lords amendment to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, proposed by Lord Archer of Sandwell, the death penalty was abolished for treason and piracy with violence, replacing it with a discretionary maximum sentence of life imprisonment. These were the last civilian offences punishable by death.

On 20 May 1998 the House of Commons voted to ratify the 6th Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibiting capital punishment except “in time of war or imminent threat of war.” The last remaining provisions for the death penalty under military jurisdiction (including in wartime) were removed when section 21(5) of the Human Rights Act 1998 came into force on 9 November 1998. On 10 October 2003, effective from 1 February 2004,^[20] the UK acceded to the 13th Protocol, which prohibits the death penalty under all circumstances,^[21] so that the UK may no longer legislate to restore the death penalty while it is subject to the Convention. It can only now restore it if it withdraws from the Council of Europe.

As a legacy from colonial times, several islands in the West Indies still had the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as the court of final appeal; although the death penalty has been retained in these islands, the Privy Council would sometimes delay or deny executions. Some of these islands severed links with the British court system in 2001 in order to speed up executions.^[22]

Crown dependencies

Further information: Capital punishment in the Isle of Man and Capital punishment in Jersey

Although not part of the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey are British Crown dependencies.

In the Channel Islands, the last death sentence was passed in 1984; the last execution in the Channel Islands was in Jersey on 9 October 1959, when Francis Joseph Huchet was hanged for murder.^[23] The Human Rights (Amendment) (Jersey) Order 2006^[24] amends the Human Rights (Jersey) Law 2000^[25] to give effect to the 13th Protocol of the European Convention on Human Rightsproviding for the total abolition of the death penalty. Both of these laws came into effect on 10 December 2006. The 13th Protocol was extended to Guernsey in April 2004.^[26]

The last execution on the Isle of Man took place in 1872, when John Kewish was hanged for patricide. Capital punishment was not formally abolished by Tynwald (the island’s parliament) until 1993.^[27]Five persons were sentenced to death (for murder) on the Isle of Man between 1973 and 1992, although all sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. The last person to be sentenced to death in the UK or its dependencies was Anthony Teare, who was convicted at the Manx Court of General Gaol Delivery in Douglas in 1992; he was subsequently retried and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1994.^[28] In 2004 the 13th Protocol was adopted,^[29] with an effective date of 1 November 2006.^[30]

Overseas territories

Like the Crown dependencies, the British overseas territories are constitutionally not part of the United Kingdom. However, the British government’s ultimate responsibility for good governance of the territories has led it over recent years to pursue a policy of revoking all statutory provision for the death penalty in those territories where it had up until recently been legal.

The last executions in an overseas territory, and indeed the last on British soil, took place in Bermuda in 1977, when two men, Larry Tacklyn and Erskine Burrows, were hanged for the 1973 murder of the then territory’s Governor Sir Richard Sharples.^[31]

In 1991, the British government extended an Order in Council to its Caribbean territories whose effect was to abolish capital punishment for murder: Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands.^[32]

The British government was unable to extend the abolition via Order in Council to Bermuda, the UK’s most autonomous overseas territory with powers of almost total self-governance — but warned that if voluntary abolition was not forthcoming it would be forced to consider the unprecedented step of ‘whether to impose abolition by means of an Act of Parliament’.^[33] As a result the Bermudian government introduced its own domestic legislation in 1999 to rectify the problem.^[34]

Further measures have subsequently been adopted to revoke technicalities in British overseas territories’ domestic legislation as regards use of the death penalty for crimes of treason and piracy. Since 2002, the death penalty has been outlawed under all circumstances in all the UK’s overseas territories.^[35]

Public support for reintroduction of capital punishment

A November 2009 television survey showed that 70% favoured reinstating the death penalty for at least one of the following crimes: armed robbery, rape, crimes related to paedophilia, terrorism, adult murder, child murder, child rape, treason, child abuse, or kidnapping. However, respondents only favoured capital punishment for adult murder, the polling question asked by other organisations such asGallup, by small majorities or pluralities: overall, 51% favoured the death penalty for adult murder, while 56% in Wales did, 55% in Scotland, and only 49% in England.^[36]

In August 2011, the Internet blogger Paul Staines – who writes a political blog as Guido Fawkes and heads the Restore Justice Camptign – launched an e-petition on the Downing Street website calling for the restoration of the death penalty for those convicted of the murder of children and police officers.^[37] The petition was one of several in support or opposition of capital punishment to be published by the government with the launch of its e-petitions website. As of August 12, an e-petition calling to retain the ban on capital punishment has received 20,000 votes^[38], 17000 more than the e-petition calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty.^[39] Petitions attracting 100,000 signatures would prompt a parliamentary debate on a particular topic, but not necessarily lead to any Parliamentary Bills being put forward.^[40]

Also in August 2011, a representative survey conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion showed that 65 per cent of Britons support reinstating the death penalty for murder in Great Britain, while 28 per cent oppose this course of action. Men, respondents aged 35-to-54 and those over the age of 55 are more likely to endorse the change.^[41]

Notable executions in the United Kingdom

Note: This list does not include the beheadings of nobility.

• 1724, 16 November: Jack Sheppard, housebreaker, was hanged at Tyburn for burglary after four successful escape attempts from jail. His partner-in-crime, highwayman Joseph “Blueskin” Blake, was executed for the same burglary five days earlier.
• 1725, 24 May: Jonathan Wild, criminal overlord and fraudulent “Thief Taker General”, was hanged at Tyburn (over six months after Jack Sheppard’s and Blueskin’s executions) for receiving stolen goods and thus aiding criminals.
• 1739: Dick Turpin, highwayman, was hanged.
• 1746, 30 July: nine Catholic members of the Manchester Regiment, Jacobites, were hanged, drawn and quartered for treason at Kennington Common (now Kennington Park).
• 1750: James MacLaine, ‘The Gentleman Highwayman’, was hanged at Tyburn, London
• 1757: John Byng became the only British admiral executed, by firing squad by the Royal Navy. His crime was to have failed to “do his utmost” at the Battle of Minorca during the Seven Years War.
• 1760, 5 May: Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl Ferrers was executed at Tyburn for the murder of a servant. He is the only peer to have been hanged for murder.
• 1789: Catherine Murphy was the last woman to be burned to death (legally) in England. The penalty was abolished the next year.
• 1812, 18 May: John Bellingham was hanged for the murder of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval.
• 1820: Andrew Hardie and John Baird were hanged and beheaded at Stirling after being tried for their part in the Radical War in Scotland.
• 1828, 11 August: William Corder was hanged at Bury St Edmunds for the murder of Maria Marten at the Red Barn a year before.
• 1856, 9 August: Martha Brown was the last woman to be hanged in public, in Dorset.
• 1861, 27 August: Martin Doyle was the last person to be hanged for attempted murder, at Chester.
• 1868, 2 April: Frances Kidder was the last woman to be hanged in public.
• 1868, 26 May: Michael Barrett was executed at Newgate Prison for the Fenian bombing at Clerkenwell, the last public hanging in the UK.
• 1899, 19 July: Mary Ansell was hanged at St Albans, for poisoning her sister. At 22 she was the youngest woman to be hanged in the post-1868 ‘modern era’ (non-public, and by the ‘long drop’ method).
• 1910, 23 November: Hawley Harvey Crippen was hanged in London’s Pentonville Prison for the murder of his wife.
• 1914, 8 September: Private Thomas Highgate was executed by firing squad, the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during World War I.
• 1915, 13 August: George Joseph Smith was hanged in Maidstone Prison for the pattern of serial killings known as the “Brides in the Bath Murders”.
• 1916, 3 August: Roger Casement was hanged at Pentonville for treason as one of the seven leaders of the failed Irish Easter Rising.
• 1920, 2 November: Private James Daly of the Connaught Rangers was shot for mutiny in India, the last member of the British Armed Forces to be executed for mutiny.
• 1923, 9 January: Edith Thompson and Frederick Bywaters, in London’s Holloway and Pentonville Prisons respectively. The case was controversial because Thompson did not directly participate in the murder for which she was hanged.
• 1931, 3 January: Victor Betts for murder committed during the course of a robbery. The case had established that a person need not be present when a crime is committed to be regarded as an accessory after the fact.^[42]
• 1941, 15 August: Josef Jakobs was executed by firing squad, the last execution in the Tower of London.
• 1946, 3 January: William Joyce, better known as “Lord Haw-Haw“, for treason in London’s Wandsworth Prison. He was an American citizen, but was convicted of treason because, as the holder of aBritish passport (albeit fraudulently obtained), he was held to have owed allegiance to the British sovereign. Theodore Schurch, hanged for treachery the next day, was the last person to be executed for an offence other than murder; he was executed at Pentonville. As a member of the armed forces he had been tried by court-martial.
• 1947, 27 February: Walter Rowland in Manchester for the murder of Olive Balchin despite maintaining his innocence. While he had been awaiting execution, another man confessed to the crime.^{[citation needed]} A Home Office report dismissed the latter’s confession as a fake, but in 1951 he attacked another woman and was found guilty but insane.^{[citation needed]}
• 1949, 12 January: Margaret Allen, aged 43, for killing a 70-year-old woman in the course of a robbery, the first woman to be hanged in Britain for 12 years.
• 1949, 10 August: John George Haigh, the “acid-bath murderer”, at Wandsworth.
• 1950, 9 March: Timothy Evans at Pentonville for the murder of his baby daughter Geraldine at 10 Rillington Place, North West London. He initially claimed to have killed his wife, but later withdrew the claim. A fellow inhabitant at the same address, John Christie, later found to be a sexual serial killer, gave key evidence against Evans. Christie was executed in 1953 for the murder of his own wife. Evans received a posthumous pardon in 1966. In 2004 the Court of Appeal refused to consider overturning the conviction due to the costs and resources that would be involved. See John Christie (murderer).
• 1950, 28 March: George Kelly at Liverpool for murder, but had his conviction quashed posthumously by the Court of Appeal in June 2003.
• 1952, 25 April: Edward Devlin and Alfred Burns, for killing a woman during a robbery in Liverpool. They claimed that they had been doing a different burglary in Manchester, and others involved in the crime supported this. A Home Office report rejected this evidence. Huge crowds gathered outside Liverpool’s Walton Prison as they were executed.
• 1952, 3 September: Mahmood Hussein Mattan, a Somali seaman, in Cardiff for murder. The Court of Appeal quashed his conviction posthumously in 1998^[43] after hearing that crucial evidence implicating another Somali was withheld at his trial.
• 1953, 28 January: Derek Bentley at Wandsworth Prison as an accomplice to the murder of a police officer by his 16-year-old friend Christopher Craig. Craig, a minor, was not executed and instead served 10 years. Bentley was granted a posthumous pardon on 29 July 1993, and the Court of Appeal overturned his conviction on 30 July 1998.
• 1953, 15 July: John Reginald Halliday Christie at Pentonville for the murder of his wife Ethel. Christie was a serial killer and had murdered at least six other women.
• 1954, 13 December: Styllou Christofi, aged 53, penultimate woman executed in Britain.
• 1955, 12 July: Ruth Ellis, aged 28, the last woman to be hanged in Britain. She was the 15th and youngest woman hanged in the 20th century. (See also Mary Ansell, above).
• 1958, 6 May: Vivian Teed, 24, in Swansea, the last person to be executed in Wales.
• 1958, 11 July: Peter Manuel, aged 31, second to last person to be hanged in HM Prison Barlinnie and the third to last to be hanged in Scotland.
• 1959, 9 October: Francis Joseph Huchet, 31, in St Helier, Jersey, the last person to be executed in the Channel Islands.
• 1959, 5 November: Guenther Podola, the last person to be hanged for the murder of a policeman.
• 1960, 10 November: Francis Forsyth, the last 18-year-old to be executed in Britain;
• 1960, 22 December: Anthony Miller, 19, in Glasgow‘s Barlinnie Prison, the last teenager to be executed in Britain.
• 1961, 20 December: Robert McGladdery, 25, in Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast, the last person to be executed in Northern Ireland, for the murder of Pearl Gamble in Newry.
• 1962, 4 April: James Hanratty at Bedford after a controversial rape-murder trial. In 2002 Hanratty’s body was exhumed and the Court of Appeal upheld his conviction after Hanratty’s DNA was linked to crime scene samples.
• 1963, 15 August: Henry Burnett, aged 21, at Craiginches Prison in Aberdeen for the murder of seaman Thomas Guyan, the last hanging in Scotland.
• 1964, 13 August: Peter Anthony Allen, at Walton Prison in Liverpool, and Gwynne Owen Evans, at Strangeways Prison in Manchester for the murder of John Alan West, the last people executed in Britain.^[14]