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Vivian Teed -
the last man hanged in |
With special thanks to Monty Dart for researching this case from
contemporary newspaper reports.
It seems odd that the case of the last man to be executed in
24 year old Vivian Frederick Teed of
Teed was arrested three days later, initially denying any involvement in
the crime, claiming to have been with his girlfriend on the night in question. Police found
blood on his jacket, trousers and shoes.
In a statement Teed said “I went to Fforestfach
on Friday night. I went to the Post
Office about seven. When I knocked at
the door Mr Williams answered it. I was
rather surprised, because I did not expect an answer. My idea was to find out
if anyone was in and then get in by the best possible means. The first thing I did was to push him
back. Then he started yelling and
struggling with me. There was a hammer
in my pocket which I had brought in case I had to force an entry. I knew that
if I struggled with him too long somebody would hear and come and investigate,
so I pulled the hammer out of my pocket and hit him. But instead of knocking him out as I
expected, he continued to struggle, so I kept on hitting him, so as to get away
as he had a hold on me. In the end, he
fell to the floor and dragged me down with him.
Then he went quiet. He was still
groaning like, and I took some keys out of his pockets and tried them in the
Post Office door from the passage. I
left the keys in the keyhole. There were
a lot of keys, but I dropped some. I
went and tried all the drawers to see if there was any money. I had a look around like. He was still moving and groaning, and then he
started as if to get up. I didn’t want
him to see me, so I switched off the light and made for the door. Then I thought it would be better to leave
the light on so that someone would see it, probably a constable on the beat,
and go and check up. I wanted this so
that he wouldn’t lose too much blood.
Then he started to get up again.
He had been struggling to get up all the time, but he couldn’t get a
footing. It was too slippery in the
blood. The last thing I saw he was up on
his knees. Then I left by the front
door. I meant to leave the door open,
but there was someone outside posting a letter, so I slammed the door as anyone
would, leaving the place. That’s all I want to say.”
“I did tell someone about it at the café in Cwmbwria. I think his name is Ron. (it
was one Ronald Thomas Franklin Williams) I didn’t intend to do the old man any
harm. I didn’t even intend to touch him or do what I did.” Teed then admitted searching the Post Office
for money and also to wearing women’s silk stockings over his hands to avoid
leaving finger prints.
Teed was committed for trial by local magistrates on November 19th and
duly appeared at Cardiff before Mr. Justice Salmon on the 17th and 18th of
March 1958. He was prosecuted by W L
Mars Jones and E P Wallis Jones and defended by F Elwyn
Jones and Dyfan Roberts.
The headlines in the Western Mail
in its report of the proceedings stated “Man driven to kill postmaster of 73
says QC.” Teed’s
defence was that he was suffering from “impaired mental responsibility”, and
had been driven to the “terrible deed” by a force beyond his control, Mr. Elwyn Jones, Q.C. told the jury “The defence is not that
this man did not kill the unfortunate postmaster. That tragic fact is true. The defence is that when the accused did it
he was suffering from abnormality of the mind which impaired substantially his
mental responsibility for what he did when he killed the postmaster.” If the jury accepted this defence said Mr Elwyn Jones, they could not convict Vivian Teed of murder.
Quoting the 1957 Homicide Act he told them “The law says that in such a case
you must bring in a verdict of manslaughter.
He may be a most dangerous man because of his abnormality” said Elwyn Jones.
Mr Mars Jones said that some “27 hammer blows were identified on Mr.
Williams”, In August, Teed had worked for three days in the Post Office. The
alert was raised by Miss John when she arrived at work on 16th November. The police were called and found a hammer,
the shaft broken, near the body, which was later traced back to Teed’s father, having been taken from his tool box.
Bloody footsteps could be seen leading to the side door. In court Detective Inspector L.D. Foster,
attached to the Cardiff Forensic Science Laboratory said that the pattern on
the heel of a shoe belonging to the man in the dock was identical to a print
found in the home of Mr. Williams.
Foster said he had compared impressions of Teed’s
shoes with prints found on the linoleum in the dead man’s hallway. The pattern visible on a photograph was
identical with a tracing he had made of an impression from one of the
shoes. “In my opinion the impression on
the lino could very well have been made by this shoes”
he said. Mr Emlyn
Glyndwr Davies, principal scientific officer at the Forensic Science laboratory
said in evidence that blood samples had been taken in the hallway of the Post
Office and also from the jacket, trousers, shirt, shoes and socks worn by Teed.
“There were many bloodstains in the hall, and blood smears were on a key in the
door leading to the Post Office premises and on an exterior door. A mat in the hall was heavily bloodstained
and on it were fragments of bone.”
Donald Douglas James Teed, brother of the accused said that he hadn’t
seen his brother at home, he didn’t see him until
Mr Douglas Glaze, the hospital officer at Swansea Prison said that he
had kept notes in the hospital record book on Teed’s
behaviour whilst he was on remand at the prison. Consulting the book he noted that he had
described Teed as “a dangerously jealous man who needs careful watching.” On one occasion it was alleged that Teed had
told a visitor “I hit him because he was holding me, but I didn’t mean to
murder him.” His outbursts seemed to
coincide with visits from his girlfriend, Mrs Beryl Doyle.
Dr Eurfyl Jones, consultant psychiatrist at St
David’s Hospital,
On questioning from Mr. Mars Jones, Dr. Jones said that he believed Teed
knew what he was doing, but he was suffering from “mental illness.” He considered that mental abnormality
substantially impaired twenty four year old Teed’s
mental responsibility when he killed Mr. Williams, he
further stated that his remorse for his actions was “imperceptibly shallow.”
Dr. M.A.B. Fenton, Senior Medical Officer in charge of
On
For Teed to receive the death sentence in 1958 the jury had not only to
be convinced that he killed the victim but also that the murder met one of the
five criteria specified by the previous year’s Homicide Act (see end note).
Forty minutes later the jury emerged for the third time. Teed was called
to the dock to hear their verdict: guilty of capital murder in the furtherance
of theft. He rose and gripped the rail
of the dock as Mr Justice Salmon, put on the black cap and pronounced sentence
of death, telling him he that he would “suffer death in the manner authorized
by law”, as the new wording of the death sentence had become since the passing
of the Homicide Act of 1957. As Teed was
taken to the cells he gestured and smiled to friends in the crowded public
gallery.
Teed was returned to
A 16 page petition for mercy signed by a thousand people was collected
and forwarded to the Home Secretary. Teed’s appeal
was heard in
Only a dozen people and two policemen were standing outside the gates of
He was the third man to be hanged since the passing of the 1957 Homicide
Act. Under a new rule, no notice of
execution was posted on the main doors of the prison, this was to prevent a
crowd gathering when executions were carried out.
Teed had been executed for the murder of sub-postmaster William Williams
and one of those outside the prison gates that day was his namesake and
childhood friend, Mr. William Williams of Fforestfach,
who said “I have come here to have the satisfaction of knowing that justice has
been done.”
The Homicide Act of 1957.
This
Act became law in March of 1957 and classified murders as capital or non
capital and also introduced the notion of diminished responsibility into
English law. Under the Act there remained five categories of murder for which
the death sentence was still mandatory, viz: