1963 Tuesday December 17th - Hanged for Murder No-one in Bristol missed the significance of the moment that bells chimed the hour for 8 o'clock that morning. It marked the death of 23-year-old Russell Pascoe for his part in the murder of a Cornish farmer. Dennis Whitty, convicted with him, was hanged at the same moment in Winchester. The execution was the last to be carried out in Bristol and one of the last to take place in Britain before the abolition of capital punishment in 1965. The Bishop of Bristol, the Rt Rev Oliver Tomkins, who had earlier protested at the death sentence, visited the condemned man in his cells shortly before the hanging. He emerged, pale-faced and weary, at the prison gates. 'Wearing his robes, the Bishop asked the 70 people keeping the silent vigil outside the grim prison walls to pray for the condemned man. 'The demonstrators, who had kept up a day-and-night protest vigil since Saturday, bared their heads as the prison chapel clock chimed eight. 'At the same time Dennis John Whitty (22) was hanged at Winchester Prison for the same murder. 'Pascoe was visited last night by his wife and mother. 'Mr George Gummer, a Bristol accountant and local secretary of the National Campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, said the Bishop had told them Pascoe was a changed man in the past three weeks—and one who had found pure Christian faith. 'Mr Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP for Bristol South East, who was outside the prison last night, thinks this will be the last execution in Bristol. 'He said: 'I am sure that in 1964 the death penalty will be abolished'. 'The last execution in Bristol was 10 years ago when John Owen Greenway of Swindon was hanged for murdering his landlady. The last in this country was in November last year at Strangeways, Manchester. 'Pascoe and Whitty, who had been living with three young women in a caravan near Truro, were sentenced to death at Cornwall Assizes for the murder of 64-year-old farmer William Rowe in the furtherance of theft. 'Their appeals were dismissed and on Saturday the Home Office announced that The Home Secretary had found no grounds to recommend a reprieve. 'The demonstrators at Horfield, who included university students and lecturers and a contingent who arrived from 'Cornwall last night, began to disperse shortly after 8 a.m. 'But one bearded youth shouted: Sickening. The people of Bristol should have torn the gates down instead of just standing around'. 'They left banners propped up against the prison gates. One read: 'Let the Law of kindness Know No Limits'. 'Outside the prison, the campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment ;started a fund for the relatives of the dead farmer and the two men who murdered him. 'The Bishop of Bristol later issued this :statement: 'Under the care of the prison chaplain, Russell Pascoe asked for baptism and confirmation in the prison. 'So at the request of the governor and chaplain, I saw him on various occasions to offer my ministry and give him both his first and his last communion. 'I would have wished this, the normal ministry of God to His children in need, to be no more remarked upon than if he had been dying in hospital. 'But since it has become public, it will be of comfort to his fellow Christians to know that sin and shame were overcome. 'This victory no more justifies hanging than the fact that war may evoke heroism is a justification of war. 'But it is a reminder that no one is beyond God's reach.' 'But when he asked for 'a kind thought for the men who hate having to carry out this unpleasant task' a man shouted: 'They don't have to do it'. 'The Bishop replied: 'They do'. 'He went inside the prison 40 minutes before the time set for the execution - 8 a.m. - and saw the condemned man.