When the family of Derek Bentley – hanged in 1953 for the murder of a policeman – attempted to obtain a posthumous pardon for his wrongful execution, they approached a local south London solicitor, Benedict Birnberg, for help.
It was the beginning of a more than 30-year-long, ultimately successful, legal campaign that helped pave the way for the abolition of the death penalty in Britain in 1969, and raised profound questions about miscarriages of justice.
