Christopher Simcox (10 December 1909 – 23 January 1981) was an English double murderer, notable and perhaps unique in being twice sentenced to death, and twice reprieved.
[1] However, in April 1948 the House of Commons had passed Sydney Silverman's amendment to the then current Criminal Justice Bill to suspend capital punishment for murder for five years.
[2] The House of Lords overturned the amendment later in the year, but in the intervening period the Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede had announced that he would reprieve all condemned prisoners until the law was settled.
[6] However, his lawyers petitioned the Home Secretary, Henry Brooke, on the grounds that Simcox was still severely injured from his self-inflicted wounds, could not walk, and would probably have to be hanged in a wheelchair.
[8] Five months later, the last-ever hangings in Britain, the executions of Gwynne Evans and Peter Allen, took place, and in 1965 the death penalty was, in practice, abolished for murder.