A Place of Execution

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Set on the major road connecting London with the English Channel port of Dover, it was a common haunt for highwaymen and as such became a popular site for the gallows where such bad-boys were sent to meet their maker.

I was looking for a solid, reliable thriller that I could listen to whilst commuting to work, and as I had heard so many praise her work, I thought I would give ‘A Place of Execution’ a go. Place of Execution– written by Val McDermid and adapted for TV by Patrick Harbinson was made into a 3-part TV drama starring Juliet Stevenson and Greg Wise. Although the most notorious English highwaymen of the day appear to have met their end on the gallows at Tyburn, the crime of highway robbery remained so prevalent right up until the early 19th century that the Shooter’s Hill hangman was kept busy enough. In McDermid's crafty stand-alone thriller, psychiatrist Charlotte "Charlie" Flint gives expert testimony at the Leicester murder trial of Bill Hopton that contributes to his acquittal.Alternating timelines - the 'go to' plot device that the people who make TV love - and people who watch TV hate! Perhaps the most famous pirate to be executed was Captain Kidd in 1701, the inspiration for Treasure Island. On the other hand, some pace and some logic of events left to be desired, but it may well be so that I am just "spoilt" by similar other British and Scandinavian series.

Although the death penalty in England was abolished in 1965, we’ve managed to track down some of London’s most historic execution sites which we’ve marked on the interactive map below. In the present days, a documentary film maker, Catherine Heathcote (Juliet Stevenson) is finishing up the film about the case that shook the nation and the man who was in the center of investigation, highly respected and decorated Police Inspector, George Bennett. Nevertheless, this detail never feels gratuitous and does serve in both furthering the plot and in making George Bennett’s cause feel all the more noble. On a freezing December night in 1963 a 13-year-old girl vanished without trace – the mystery was never solved.Those pirates found guilty and sentenced to death would be paraded from Marshalsea Prison in Southward over London Bridge, past the Tower of London and towards Wapping where Execution Dock was located. Although nothing now remains of the gaol, Charles Dickens who attended one of the public hangings that took place on 13 November 1849, records the event itself. Hawkin’s secluded world is turned upside down when Alison vanishes after going out to walk her dog on the moors. The girl's mother, Ruth Hawkin, is from one of three families who have lived for generations in the village, a place Bennett discovers to be remote and ingrown beyond anything in his experience.

This meant that the public executions were now held in the heart of the City of London, drawing large audiences all the way up until the public executions were abandoned in 1868. At one time the world’s largest port, it is hardly surprising that London has a rather prolific connection with piracy! When Mary, the eldest child of Henry VIII, became queen in 1553, she attempted to reverse all of fathers ‘wrongs’ and enforce the wholesale conversion of England back to Catholicism.

A small memorial plaque to William Wallace in Smithfield still attracts flower-laying Scottish patriots. The drama, set in the present day with flashbacks to the 1960s, was filmed in Northumberland in two distinct parts. The biggest hurdle was the weather because, despite what people think about the north-east, it's not always cold. Alabama inmate James Barber was put to death early Friday morning, in the first execution in the state after a monthslong pause following a series of botched executions nationwide and increased scrutiny over the use of lethal injection — the most widely used death penalty method in the country. There are several reasons for the decline, including states pausing executions during the COVID-19 pandemic, a decrease in death penalty practices and the availability of lethal injection drugs, according to former Death Penalty Information Center Deputy Director Ngozi Ndulue.