Derek William Bentley (30 June 1933 – 28 January 1953) was a British man who was hanged for the murder of a policeman during a burglary attempt. Christopher Craig, then aged 16, a friend and accomplice of Bentley, was accused of the murder. Bentley was convicted as a party to the crime under the English law principle of "joint enterprise", as the burglary had been committed in mutual understanding and bringing deadly weapons. The outcome of the trial, and Home Secretary David Maxwell Fyfe's failure to grant clemency to Bentley, were highly controversial. The jury at the trial found Bentley guilty based on the prosecution's interpretation of the ambiguous phrase "Let him have it" (Bentley's alleged exhortation to Craig) after the judge, Lord Chief Justice Goddard, had described Bentley as "mentally aiding" the murder. Goddard sentenced Bentley to be hanged, despite a recommendation for mercy by the jury: under the Judgment of Death Act 1823, no other sentence was possible (subsequently the Homicide Act 1957, which introduced stronger "diminished responsibility" safeguards, was all but certainly influenced by the Bentley trial). The Bentley case became a cause célèbre and led to a 45-year-long campaign to win Bentley a posthumous pardon, which was granted in 1993, and then a further campaign for the quashing of his murder conviction, which occurred in 1998. Bentley's case is thus considered a case of miscarriage of justice alongside that of Timothy Evans, and pivotal in the successful campaign to abolish capital punishment in the United Kingdom. Early life Derek Bentley entered Norbury Manor Secondary Modern School in 1944, after failing the eleven-plus examination. Just before leaving, in March 1948, he and another boy were arrested for theft. Six months later, Bentley was sentenced to serve three years at Kingswood Approved School near Bristol. Christopher Craig also attended the same Secondary Modern school. Health and mental development Bentley had a series of health problems. His parents reported that in a childhood accident he had broken his nose and since then he had three seizure fits, including one in which they said he nearly died of choking. The family also said they were bombed out three times during the Second World War, and in one of these incidents the house in which he lived collapsed around him, but a court did not find any indication that he was physically injured in the incident. However, Bentley was later seen