Find out why an application to pardon a woman, who was hanged 100 years ago for the murder of her husband, is being reconsidered after a government U-turn.
An application to pardon a woman who was hanged 100 years ago for the murder of her husband is being reconsidered after a government U-turn.
She was executed at Holloway Prison on 9 January 1923 where she had to be carried to the gallows with her arms and ankles bound following days of injections of a powerful sedative. One issue highlighted was that the judge, Sir Montague Shearman, allowed Edith's love letters to be used as "evidence of intention and motive" even though they had no connection to the murder, with no mention of a stabbing or the setting up of an attack included in them.
However, the prosecution falsely told the jury there were "practically" no traces of any poisoning, in what is claimed was an effort to mislead them.Edith Thompson and her younger sister Avis Graydon were both born in the 1890s at the end of the Victorian era As the only evidence submitted against Edith Thompson, the 26 love letters she wrote to Freddy Bywaters used during the trial were key to the case.
"The jury performed a painful duty, but Mrs Thompson's letters were her own condemnation," they added.Criminal psychologist Dr Donna Youngs studied them for the BBC One programmein 2018 and found they showed Edith's thinking was almost "childlike", adding that there was "nothing... which is consistent with a genuine commitment to killing her husband".
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