BENTLEY AND CRAIG

a famous British legal case. In 1952 two young men, Derek Bentley and Christopher Craig, were caught on a roof in south London by the police, who believed they were involved in a crime. Craig shot and killed a policeman after Bentley had shouted, ‘Let him have it!’ (which could mean either ‘Give him the gun!’ or ‘Shoot him!’). Britain still had capital punishment at the time, and Bentley, who was 19 but had a mental age of 11, was hanged. Craig, who was 16, was sent to prison. Bentley’s family continued to argue that he should not have been executed, and in 1998 the Court of Appeal finally pardoned him.