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Jane Eyre Essay


As they climbed onto the roof of the warehouse they were noticed by a little girl who lived opposite and whose mother phoned the police. Craig and Bentley were on the roof as the police arrived and attempted to run but DC Fairfax quickly detained Bentley. Craig decided to shoot his way out and fired at DC Fairfax wounding him in the shoulder. Later, Craig fired the fatal shot which killed PC Constable Miles. Both Craig and Bentley were convicted of the murder of PC Miles at their trial six weeks later, the jury returned guilty verdicts on both youths with a recommendation for mercy in Bentley's case. Although Derek Bentley did not have a gun and was already restrained by police at the time of the shooting, the police claimed he was equally guilty of the crime because he supposedly incited to his accomplice, the words "Let him have it, Chris". Many people have argued that these words actually meant let him have the gun and were not words of encouragement. Craig could not be sentenced to death because he was under-age so thoughts of vengeance turned to Bentley. After the trial, many attempts were made to secure a reprieve for Bentley. The Home Secretary blocked all attempts by his MP colleagues even to get the matter discussed. At one point, it was argued that a Parliamentary debate on whether the sentence should be carried out could only take place after the sentence had been carried out. Derek Bentley, at age nineteen, was hanged in Wandsworth at 9am on 28th January 1953. Chris Craig was released from prison in May 1963 after serving ten years and he settled in Buckinghamshire.
             The Craig and Bentley story has been so controversial over the past four decades because many peopled believed that a terrible wrong had been committed by the justice system and it did not seem right to walk away without questioning it. I don't think that Derek Bentley should have been hanged because of several reasons including the fact that he had a mental age of 11.


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