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From: bluepioneer
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  • @FuryRainbow Same here :D

  • I saw it in my English lesson.

  • God I love Elvis Costello

  • Im using the story of Derek B as a stimulus in drama...Makes me feel sick, he didnt deserve any of it :'( <3

  • Our History teacher showed us this in class. :)

  • woop!, we watched this in our GCSE History lesson!! we were given the lyrics:)!, now all of us ask to watch it every lesson, then hav it in our heads for the rest of the week!! is it just me or does Christopher Eccleston look so much younger although it was after doctor who!! :)

  • @KLCurtiss

    doctor who was in 2005

    this film was 1991

    the song was 2007

    i think youre confusing the film for being the music video

  • @halocinema1 i know i relealised after i posted, but i still love the video:) we watched again in my last history lesson:)!

  • i saw it in ma r.e lesson too and now i am writin a report letter on capital punishment but i am also using real life evidence such as this young lad 19 year of age.

  • @magicalice10 same. Its so depressing......

  • Del bentley was hanged in revenge for the shooting of pc miles...Chris Craig pulled the trigger but was too young to hang so the old bill fitted up del bentley....bentley was under arrest for a full 20 minutes before pc miles was shot but was still on the roof of the warehouse and being held onto by detective sergeant Fairfax

  • Christopher Eccleston is great. 

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  • we have been learning about this case in english, we had an exam on it, and listening to this song really helped! the song stayed in my head for ages!

    this story is soo sad, it just goes to show how shit our justise system was back then! i think that the three policemen who swore his life away by saying that he said those fatal words should of been hung!

    Bentley never ever ever ever said those words, but was still killed!

    He died an innocent man, with a caring heart.

  • I was 16 when our English teacher gave us this song for an exam..We got to listen to it, she gave us some background, and we had to explain what we felt. She was great as a teacher, and this is a great song. We came out of the exam eager to find out what actually had happened and, in my case, totally in love with Elvis Costello.

  • I think the killing of derek bentley was just wrong, i think the little chris graig fucker shoulda died instead... >=]

  • Omg! this film is ace;)

    love the end bit;) 'should have killed that fucker as well'!

    i think paul reynolds was cute;)

  • I saw the film in english, and heard the song in drama. The film is really good, and the song is really catchy.

  • Saw this in geography, nice one

  • good job

  • keep it there, let Guns be awful in your mind

  • We watched this in Drama today. So bloody powerful.

  • i watch this in history aswell today

  • he watched your video in history today :D

  • I watched this during drama after wards I had to go to the nurse because I couldn't breath.

  • Fucking wrong.

  • i saw this in Drama cos we've been working on it!! we've had to do the bits from when derek and chris were on the roof and we had to do the scene where derek was being hanged. Oh yh, and the court room scene!!

  • @PebblesDave Same :) :)

  • @DecadenceRock cool. wot school do u go to??

  • @PebblesDave HRS

  • @DecadenceRock cool :)

  • @DecadenceRock Is this dave rock??

  • i saw this in english class

  • Thanks so much for putting this together. I learnt of the case in my teens when the song and the film came out within two years of each other. The song and the footage match perfectly.

  • I saw this in English

  • I saw it in History

  • @NottighamPanthers05

    i saw it in english

  • @NottighamPanthers05 i saw it in drama :p

  • I also saw this in RE

  • it has to stop, Be fair todfay

  • doing this in drama, i love the song its so catchy even if its about something so terrible. great vid :) cant believe derek got hung for saying let him have it and chris got ten years for murder cuz he was underaged, so not fair

  • ftw i watched it in history wid r teacher

  • we watched this in english the series and someone saw your vid so we put it on its pretty good

  • Thanks for putting this vid up, we watched it in my R.E lesson this morning, and i thought it was great.:)

  • I'm sure your facts are right. It just looks like he was decapitated in the film. I'm with you on capital punishment.

    Google Cameron Todd Willingham.

  • At 3min 37sec, is his head separated from his torso? Sorry, not trying to be gross, but thats how it appears.

    Excellent job of juxtaposing the images and dialog of the film with Elvis Costello's song, by the way.

  • He was hung By Albert Pierrepioint....his drop was precise...it had been many years since any drop was so badly calculated that it resulted in decapitation - about 100 years I understand...although occasionally one would strangle...not reported in this case.....and no I am not in favour of capital punishment

  • filthyphillyboy, I don't see what you mean...?

  • Well, littleemopony, if you go to exactly 3min 38sec, you see what appears to be his chest or waist at the same level of the hem of his trousers (bottom of his trousers) That's all I can say, but I could be over-interpreting the sequence.

  • Filthyphillyboy, I still can't see it, so I'll have to take your word for it, lol! :P

  • You may have to get the DVD & run it step by step. I guess its a minor point. Great sad movie, anyway. Here in the States, especially Texas (where they execute about 20 people a year), capital punishment is a plague, IMO. Cameron Todd Willingham was unjustly executed in Texas in 2004. The Governor, who might face jail if its shown Willingham was unjustly executed, recently fired members of a commission when they were about to prove the original investigation was seriously flawed. Sicko.

  • It's disgusting. I'm glad it was abolished here in England. I think it should be abolished everywhere. It's completely hypocritical and, at the end of the day, murder, which, in some cases, you are prosecuting against! It makes no sense. Good riddance to the death penalty in England, I say.

  • He's not decapitated, but very close to it. The British drop tables, and the departures the executioners made from them, brought the fracture dislocation dangerously close to decapitation.

    Ten or so interred bodies of hanged murderers were exhumed in the 1990s as part of an unrelated study, and the pathologist who examined what little was left came to the above conclusion.

  • Doesn't it sound terrible when you talk about it like this? They try to say we used that method because it was "the most humane" but it's not very really is it?! At least with a lethal injection they just fall asleep, if it works and they don't mess up the doses or the criminal doesn't turn out to be allergic to one of the drugs they are using I can't believe people actually call for bringing back long drop hanging, if more people knew exactly how horrible it was I bet they wouldn't.

  • Nancy: I would argue that if more people, including you, knew exactly how horrible the true reality of Lethal Injection is then you wouldn't even mention it. Lethal Injection is a horrific, drawn-out, inhumane spectacle that masquerades as a medical operation, making it all that more disgusting. At the end of the day, you are executing a criminal, and you can't disguse the ugliness of it. British hanging was efficient, terrifyingly-so, but it's better than waiting 40 mins on a gurney in Florida.

  • It is a very lethal combination of anaesthetics and sleepers so it should kill them pretty fast if it goes according to plan ie. they don't misjudge the criminals weight and get the doses wrong or something like that.

  • And for what it's worth I don't believe anyone should get capital punishment no matter what they've done, no matter how "humane" the execution method is. Hope my previous comments didn't give you the impression I am pro capital punishment.

  • What I was meaning was that yes, in theory Lethal Injection would work fine as a method, but that its current application in the US leaves a lot to be desired. Can't speak for China because they are every bit as secretive with regards to their DP as we were.

  • And no, didn't get that impression at all. I'm about 60-40 in favour personally. I tend to think that there are certain crimes and certain people that truly merit it.

  • @DeepSixed300 ITA measured long drop is way more humane than Lethal Injection - see the movie 'Pierrepoint'. Correctly done the execution takes seconds with minimal pain. Lethal Injection looks more palatable for those executing the condemned but is not easier or quick for the condemned themselves.

  • @Isobel31Swan You're preaching to the choir; British Hanging is the only method of execution I agree with. I personally think Lethal Injection, in its American application at any rate, is horrific.

  • No, correctly measured long drop hanging just snaps the neck and spinal cord causing instant death not decapitation.

  • @mercdriver it's referred to as an 'internal decapitation'.

  • this is a really great vid, and i want it as my "featured vid" on my channel but pootube won't let me! god dammit :(

  • when the executioner arrived at the prison,the guvenor gave him the prisoners height,weight,and age,the executioner then calculated the lengthof the drop based on this,some fine tuneing albeit,thick neck heavy bones etc allowed the executioner to fine tune it an inch or two either way,to guarentee instant death

  • Chris Craig was a dam good shot!

  • Great song

    1.50 any London School at the moment ,lol

  • Whats the movie called I would like to watch it

  • Let Him Have It

  • Amazing film. Bentley & craig are quite hot lol. but thats not the point. In my opinion he shouldnt have been hanged

  • Just remembered this song, must have been about 20 years since I last heard it, no shit. Great song, very powerfull

  • we are doin it in englishh :)

  • Quick point for all you guys at school studying this, be it for RE or English or Media Studies or whatever, as there is a glaring lie in the end credits to LHHI.

    The abolition of the DP in the UK for murder in '69 was not the result of any "public outcry" as a result of any execution, be it Bentley's or any of his contemporaries; it was instead the result of a campaign by a small but well-connected liberal pressure group who had the ears of the 1964 Labour government under Harold Wilson.

  • But Bentley's family were involved with that pressure group and were present in the house of lords and commons throughout the debate, they petitioned against the death penalty at speakers corner and gained overwhelming support. It just sucks that they weren't alive to see derek's full pardon.

  • were doin this in english, was actually quite a good film!

  • We're doing this in Drama too and our teacher showed THIS video in class!! lol Well Done though, cool video =D

  • im doin this for drama as well its a very sad topic

  • i keep singing it .. funny

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  • I had this song in my head for months.

  • @LennieMelvin same

  • Same!

  • ur doing this in RE? ?? ?? ?? ?  im doing this for my Drama coursework lol =]

  • YAY paul reynolds!!!

    *ahem*

  • we're doin that in drama

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  • pierrepoint is a hero, yea he has been given controversial jobs like hanging ruth ellis and derek bently, but he was doing his job and if I was found guilty for murder, that I did do of course I would only struggle if they handed down anything below hanging. that's the way I'd like to go, through judicial murder of course. heck, I wouldn't mind at all being a hangman. and it ain't just pull a pin, push a lever. you have to look into their eyes, strap them, and put the noose around their neck too

  • Yeah, there are two sides to it the likes of Ian Huntley deserve to be hung in fact Id give him a few less inches on the rope!

    But be careful about using the Timothy Spall film to form an opinion on Pierrepoint it was very good, but he was nothing like that. A lot of people who met him found him quite sinister including a fellow hangman who saw him fly into a rage when a prisoner was reprieved it had been a long time since a hanging and Pierrepoint needed his fix

  • And who was this "fellow hangman" ?

  • I'm guessing Syd Dernley, but he only ever saw his rage with regards to his treatment by prison staff. Your story of rigging the gallows and then flying off the handle after hearing it was in vain just smacks of outright bullshit unless you can cite the incident and criminal.

    And for the record, the majority of people who met him and/or worked alongside him held him in the highest regard.

  • i bet they never laughed and joked in court like these wangters do now after killing someone

  • True, but this specific case was a great injustice.

    Ive just been reading a biography of Harry Allen, Britains last hangman, who assisted Pierrepoint in the execution, and even he petitioned the home office not to go through with it. Pierrepoint showed indifference though.

  • According to his assistant, Goddard, who was the judge at the Bentley case, used to have an orgasm while handing down the death sentence and his trousers used to have to be sent away for cleaning.

    Goddard also helped save Dr John Bodkin Adams from the noose a few years later (Adams was basically an earlier Harold Shipman but upper class and wealthy) by hand picking the judge and prosecutors in his case and convincing police to misplace evidence. In other words, he was bent.

  • what lovely, merry things they let us write about for our english coursework.

    its so awful when he gets hung!

    good job with the video though.

  • Cool.

  • omg i watched dis movie in english 4 mii media coursework... and its so so sg i have 2 do a reveiwe 4 mii coursework:s lool

    i lked it so so much...

    Derek soooooooo shouldnt of bn shot!!!!

  • :) well i hope you do well in your media class but i think you'll fail, because he got hung...not shot???

  • You should be shot for butchering the English language.

  • we listened to this song in drama cause we had to act it out and even though it`s a horrible thing to sing of most of us found it sounded funny and everyone was singing it for the rest of the day but after actually watching this i don`t find it funny anymore and it shows how unfair prejudice and biased people can be i don`t think bentley deserved being hanged either

    i think i`ll shut up now

  • i also saw this in RE it was so wrong what happened am glad we got ride of the penalty in the UK

  • chris craig is alive and is in his 50's he got 10 years in prison

  • I want to know if Christopher Craig is still alive. Hes the one that should of hung instead of Derek Bentley.

    Studying this atm :)..

    x

  • hi i think that craig is still alive

    and he is apparently a law abiding citizen

  • craig is still alive and living in bedfordshire he took a lie detector test in 1984 and swore that bentley never said let him have it

  • and what did the test show up

  • if what i read was right then bentley never said let him have it the police made it up just to get a conviction

  • 1991...

  • iwatched it this week, he got 10 years

    his bro got 12

    iris fought till she died a few years ago tpo preve he was innocent....

    it only got confirmed after she died

    and they have new evidence, it wasnt chris that killed miles, it was another policeman , by accident

  • oh and by the way to the people argui ng about whether it was 10 or 12 years

    i think it was christophers craig's brother who was sentenced to 12 years

    and him only for 10

  • i also watched this film for my year 10 english coursework

    its very good

  • i loved this film. i has to do an essay on it for my english in yr 10.

    this film is awesome. it really showed me how serious ww2 was and how badly it affectly the famillies!

    i really didnt think derek deserved the hanging though, it wasnt his fault!!!!!

  • bleak

  • ya know... its a terrible case but the biggest victim is Sidney Miles :'(

  • @smashedcatt What? Are you serious? He was a copper! lower than a dog.

  • Nice ending :D

    Lol

  • The police wanted someone to pay and derek bentley was the man. This is 1 of the worst miscarriages of justice in britain !

  • they put craig away for life and 10 years later he was out

  • 12 years

  • it waz 10 years

  • get it right mate it was 12

  • errrrr no it waz 10

  • It was 12 years

    It might of been his brother that got 10 years

  • no craig got 10 years and then he waz relaised all the articals and web sites say so and i have been studying it for 2 years xx

  • It was Niven that got 12 years, Chris got 10 years.

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  • Try feeling sorry for for Sidney Miles? But I don't suppose feeling sorry for a murdered policeman is very fashionable is it?

  • the shool the lads went to is near to where i live

  • and they said this was british justice derek bentley was innocent and chris craig himself has said that bentley never even said 'let him have it' thats what the british police were like in the fifties bu lets be honest have things changed since then

  • chris dident say derek dident say let him have it

  • yes he did in 1983 he said it in an interview on tv and he claimed that derek bentley never said let him have it

  • almost every country world has made this mistake loads of times

  • i saw this in drama there when i was in school there should be more killings in it

  • we watched this film in english to do for a gcse exam.. and i hated the court room bit.. i was literaly sick!

    :(

  • read the book by his sister iris bentley.(let him have justice) it tells a lot more about how the police lied to get bentley hanged and how the system just wanted a scapegoat to balance the books so to say!!!...r.i.p del.

  • I think that is the most stupid execution, EVER! Derek only said four words and didn't kill anyone yet Chris shot a police officer! Stupid!

  • If this film was true word for word on the roof, Derrick clearly warned the police that Chris Craig had a gun. That would kind of give evidence that "Let him have it, Chris!" meant give him the gun. I feel so bad for Bentley.

  • I know, I feel sorry for Bentley. But you just can't be sure by what he meant. I personally believe he meant give him the gun, but it does refer to shoot him. We can't say for sure, but yeah I believe he meant it that way.

  • Im British and i dont care what i say now, 'Blame the fkin 'Her Majesty's Pleasure' the useless cunt, the way to show poor Derek die it's so sad, the creator wanted to show sympathy, then 1998, Derek was cleared.

  • Shame on the British Justice system for this and for the Timothy Evans case as well. There was another police officer on the roof that night who was never called to give evidence because he maintained that Bently never said those words. The police officer's name was Claude Payne. That poor family.

  • Yes, to think that it took years, till then d

    Derek's sis died the year before the clearing of Derek :( Shame on 'Her Majesty's Pleasure'

  • they charged derek only because Chris was not old enough...

    but derek had a mental age of 11 so technically chris was mentally older

    such a sad case

  • Derek also was epileptic

  • The saddest thing about the film is that it is true, and the fact that Derek Bentley's sister spent her whole life proving that Derek was inocent. He recived a royal pardon to say that he was killed for an unfair reason.

  • I can't believe I have to write an essay about this song! It's driving me insane! I've listened to it at least 50 times already and I'm still not done!

  • Its Silly that Derek Went Down... They Didn't Take In The Fact He Had A Mental Age Of 11.

    Chris Craig Was Let Off After 10 YEars.

  • I watched this movie in RS and then our teacher put this song on repeat for the whole lesson, it was stuck in my head for the rest of the day... grrr!

  • I'm doing this as a drama performance, its a really sad play...its really depressing and our ending makes everyone cry!!

  • same! i love this film!

  • IS this song in the film? And where can I get it from?

  • no its not

  • i saw this is an re lesson too. the film was so sad. but i really cants stand the song..

    (let him dangle..do do do doo)

  • Watched the film in english for coursework. Its so sad but the worst part is that its true.

    The song is so cheesy and very shite!

  • The film was excellent, however this song is so fucking shite, i had to sit through this almost screaming to turn it of. i thought this guy was a great and talanted singer...but when i heard this...well he sucks lol

  • Watched this in drama was alright i suppose :|

  • "He was equally guilty and you can see it." He was guilty of nothing more than being mentally retarded and easily led. Your view is one of what Justice used to be about. The doctrine of 'constructive malice' was abolished because it was and still is wrong and inaccurate.

  • Bentley was armed with a knife and knuckleduster.. did he use them ? no. The only reason he was hung was because some was to pay ? Technically he was hung for burglary? Death penatly for someone who had the iq of 66? you talk some crap.

    And F.Y.I Britain isnt no1 for crime.

    Up yours truly :)

  • it is a sad sad story killed for somthing he did not do

  • i just did this in english for SAT's watched full film it was realy good i could'nt beleive it after that this is based on a true story i searched derek bentley on google and that. anyway good video .

  • you should all the read 'let him have justice'. I don't know how anyone with half a brain cell can think he was guilty. It proves it that this case helped to abolish the death penalty altogether.. and people who agree with it happening are just as bad as chris craig himself.

  • I'm doing it for my coursework so I'm glad there's decent clips here I can use to put towards it (we're toying with the idea that after derek's hung and it pans up the rope into the light that his soul is going to heaven and as naive as it may seem I'd like to think that's what did happen - I don't think after watching the film anyone would think he was guilty, Medak did a good job and Costello's song is great too so I'm glad you put them both together!) xx

  • lol

    same as

    whats it for ?

    mines for drama

  • same same lo...atm just writing an essay on it lol..like for what the devises used in it lol. wb

  • Yeah i'm doing that right now

    its such a sad story

    it kidna give me the creeps that i'm acting out something that actually happened....

    haven't seen the film but the song is in our performance

  • We're working on the phrase 'Let him have it' in my drama class and we were 1st shown the lyrics of the song then told the story. I though the song would have been sort of sad and mellow... It's much too happy for what it's based on. Anyways, we get to watch it class next week, YAY!

    I still do think that Bentley was innocent!

  • Im doin this in ma english class @ tha mo. My teacher sed i culd become a lwayer! He's innocent until proven guilty!

  • If only.  The doctrine of presumed innocence is still enshrined within our legal system. However, cases such as this one proves that often people go to court presumed guilty. From the minute Lord Goddard was instilled as the presiding judge the outcome was obvious. The man [LG] was never about actually getting justice. He was too caught up in the whole sentencing to death thing.

  • Oh, and by the way, an excellent job in creating a video to what ought to have been the second single from Costello's mighty "Spike - The Beloved Entertainer" album (the record company's bottle crashed).

  • The 'handshake to calculate weight' story was one of the urban legends that went around Albert Pierrepoint, Bentley's executioner. Clive Revill's portrayal of Britain's most prolific hangman has proven easily the best, especially when compared to Timothy Spall's dreadful version. Pierrepoint and his assistant Wade had sat up the night before the execution listening on the wireless to the Commons debate, expecting the reprieve that never came. One of British justice's blackest moments.

  • this is my favorite film of all time. both ledgends! bently was inncoent!

  • They never shaked hands to calculate the weight at all, they viewed the condemned prisoner the day before execution, thus enabling them to calculate the weight.

  • I've been watching this in my english lessons, and I'm now writing an essay about it, like a practice GCSE. It's quite hard actually. x

  • I watch this in My english lessons.

    And this is a true story. he was epleptic. His sister faught the government saying that he wasn't guilty.

  • Awesome! You couldn't ask for better than that. Too bad the hangman in the scene did not shake Bently's hand to calculate the weight :)

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