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that there has been a gross miscarriage of justice (see para. 7
below).
3. While Hamilton telegram No 60 summarised the main points
considered by the Advisory Committee in forming their recommenda-
tion, the documents which the Committee had before them during
their consideration are available if the Secretary of State wishes
to consult them. They are detailed and bulky and the Private
Secretary is holding them as a separate volume.
4. The Secretary of State also asked to see the Hansard
references to discussion in the House of Commons on the abolition
of the death penalty in Britain. The Department is arranging
for the appropriate Hansard volumes to be brought up.
Meanwhile
I attach a summary of the proceedings from Keesings Contemporary
Archives. It appears that Sir Richard Sharples did not intervene
in any of the debates. But he consistently voted on each
occasion in favour of retaining the death penalty.
5.
The following is a brief account of how capital punishment
was discussed in the House. The second reading debate of Mr
Sydney Silverman's bill, to abolish capital punishment, was
on 21 December 1964 (Hansard, volume 704: columns 870-1010). The third reading debate was on 13-14 July, 1965 (Hansard,
volume 716: columns 358-462). Substantive debates on the
subject also took place on 5 March 1965 when the House carried
a motion to transfer the Bill from the Standing Committee to a
Committee of the whole House (Hansard 706: columns 1701-1812)
and on 26 May 1965 when an amendment was accepted limiting the
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