Publican’s role in some of the country’s most notorious executions

The last time the death penalty was used in England was on August 13, 1964.

Two men, who had been found guilty of murdering an acquaintance during a botched robbery, were hanged simultaneously at 8am - though at different locations.

Peter Anthony Allen fell through the trap door to his death at Walton Prison in Liverpool, in an execution supervised by hangman Robert Leslie Stewart.

Gwynne Owen Evans fell to his death at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, under the supervision of hangman Harry Allen.

Both men were petty criminals whose previous exploits had included breaking into cigarette machines, the theft of five shillings (25p) and larceny of 16 shillings (80p).

They were so incompetent that Evans left his raincoat at the scene of the murder, in a pocket of which was a medallion with his name engraved on it and a piece of paper with the address of a former girlfriend.

Their haul was £10 and their victim’s retirement watch.

Police had both men in custody within 36 hours.

Under interrogation, each blamed the other for the murder, but were found jointly guilty.

Harry Allen and Robert Stewart were the country’s last official hangmen - the death penalty was abolished soon afterwards.

But they did not carry out their execution alone. Each had the help of an assistant hangman - Stewart’s was Harry Robinson while Allen’s assistant was named Royston Lawrence Rickard - from Maidstone.

Mr Rickard served as an assistant hangman for 11 years, from 1953 to 1964, helping at 17 executions, for which he was paid £15 a time, plus travel expenses.

His full time job was said to be as a publican - though we have been unable to confirm that.

The role of the assistant hangman was to set up and test the drop, to strap the prisoner’s legs while on the gallows, to take down the body and prepare it for inquest.

He would also be expected to step in, if the hangman was taken ill or had last-minute qualms.

Mr Rickard was trained at Pentonville Prison, before going on his first job - to assist hangman Albert Pierrepoint in the execution of 25-year-old Philip Henry at Leeds Prison, on July 30, 1953.

As well as helping at one of the last two executions in the country, Rickard also assisted at some of the more notorious cases of the era, notably the execution of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the United Kingdom, on July 13, 1955.

He also assisted hangman Harry Allen at the April, 1962, execution of James Hanratty, the A6 murderer, which was controversial in its day, with many people believing Hanratty to be innocent and a long-running public campaign to clear his name.

Eventually, modern science silenced the disbelievers.

In 2002, Hanratty’s body was exhumed to obtain DNA samples which then proved a match with DNA from samples taken from his rape of Valerie Storie, whom he afterwards shot five times and left for dead.

He had already shot and killed her boyfriend Michael Gregsten, after hi-jacking the couple in their car.

Royston Lawrence Rickard was born in August 1919.

Unlike some of the other hangmen, who wrote their memoirs and gave interviews after retirement, Rickard chose to lead a life of obscurity. He died in June 1999, aged 79. His last known address was in Weavering Street.

Our thanks to Peter Woodbine for supplying these details