the court that they had found Doohan
guilty as charged.
Asked by the clerk if he had anything
to say before sentence of death was
passed, Doohan gripped the rail of the
dock very tightly and replied with some
hesitancy, almost in a whisper, “Yvonne
and I were in this together.”
The familiar ritual of placing the black
cap on Judge Sellers’s head took place in
such a solemn manner that it was similar
to a coronation rite.
In a clear, calm tone, Judge Sellers
proceeded to pronounce sentence of
death. A little colour seemed to flow
back into Doohan’s cheeks.
As he was led from the dock for the
last time, he scanned the public gallery,smilingly held up his clenched fists, and
shouted, “Cheers!” This was his last
desperate act of bravado.
Three weeks later, on April 14th,
1954, he was hanged at Wandsworth
Prison by Albert Pierrepoint and Harry
Allen.
For years afterwards there
were times when I recalled our
conversation at Sheerness police
station; I could still see Doohan’s
pale, conscience-stricken face and
hear him asking me, “Do you think
I will hang, constable?”told Doohan regarding the plea
of guilty but insane. He informed
the jury that he was quite sure
that Doohan had been insane at
the time of the murder and he
did not realise that what he was doing
was wrong.
Jurors listened very attentively to the
judge’s summing-up. They were absent
for a little over an hour, and when they
returned, announced to the clerk ofreplied, “I think he was hallucinating
and acting in an incongruous manner.”
Dr. W. J. Gray, Canterbury Prison’s
medical officer, rejected Dr. Ambrose’s
opinion, saying, “There is no history of
mental instability
in the family and
Doohan was an
average, fairly
intelligent and
perfectly healthy
boy at school.”
He added that he
found no signs of
insanity.
Cross-examined
on the possibility
that Doohan was
schizophrenic,
Dr. Gray replied,
“After examining
his army medical
records, I came to
the conclusion that
in 1948, Doohan
was suffering from hysteria and was
definitely malingering.”
In his final address to the jury, Mr.
Cope-Morgan – who probably realised
that Doohan could not be saved from
the gallows – reiterated everything I had
Above, Wandsworth Prison in south-west London where Doohan was
hanged by executioner Albert Pierrepoint (left)CRIME CAMERAHandcuffed to two police officers, Bruce Reynolds, the mastermind of the
1963 Great Train Robbery, arrives at Linslade, Bedfordshire, on November
26th, 1968. Reynolds had been on the run for five years, spending time
in Canada and Mexico, but was living in Torquay, Devon, under the name
Keith Hiller at the time of his arrest. In 1969 he was sentenced to 25 years
behind bars but he was released in 1978. He died, aged 81, in 2013.“There is no history of
mental instability in
the family and Doohan
was an average,
fairly intelligent and
perfectly healthy boy
at school”