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FIFTY years ago, a young Glasgow lawyer was spending his every waking minute fighting to save the life of a baby-faced killer condemned to death for a brutal gay-bashing murder.

Tony Miller, 19, had been found guilty after a trial lasting less than three days.

In November, 1960, capital punishment was still in effect and death by hanging was the penalty for capital murder.

Amid growing public outrage at the continued existence of the death penalty, a massive petition was launched to try to save the life of Miller – a first offender.

At the same time, young solicitor Len Murray – who was to become one of the country’s most acclaimed lawmen – mounted a last-ditch legal appeal.

Now retired, he recalls every details of the case as if it were yesterday.

Len said: “At the age of 27 and with only three years’ experience as a qualified lawyer, I had heard a sentence of death upon this client, a boy of 19. There then began the fight to save Tony Miller’s life.

“My experiences in Tony Miller’s case made me a confirmed abolitionist, so far as the death penalty is involved.

“I have a number of objections.

“As a practising Christian, I maintain that it is contrary to God’s law. The Commandment is: Thou shalt not kill.

“It does not go on to say ‘unless by sentence of a court’.

“That is my first objection. But it’s not the only one.

“I saw at first hand the appalling hurt it caused perfectly innocent people.

“I saw what effect the sentence of death on Tony had upon his father and mother. No society has the right to inflict that never-ending torment upon innocent people. Those poor souls would carry that cross for the rest of their lives. That memory would never ever be erased from their minds.”

The initial date set for the execution was Wednesday, December 7, at the Hanging Shed inside Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow. The appeal process meant it was cancelled.

Meanwhile, Miller, a former apprentice cabinet-maker who worked in the removals business, languished in a cell, deep in thought as he revisited the events that had brought him so close to his date with destiny.

It had been several months earlier, on Wednesday, April 6, 1960, that Miller’s world began to fall apart.

Miller lived with his parents in a comfortable flat in Dixon Road, Crosshill, Glasgow. His seaman father, Alphonsus, was often away. The house was close to Queen’s Park, which was infamous then – and now – as a pick-up place, especially for gay sex when it was illegal.

All around the park, men were being attacked and robbed. Nowadays, it’s called gay-bashing. Half a century ago, it was “queer rolling”.

Few, if any, complained to the police, as they feared being exposed as homosexual and the possibility of being charged themselves.

Miller was friendly with another local teenager, James Douglas Denovan, 16. He too came from a good home in Calder Street, Govanhill, also close to the park.

They often met in the Cathkin Cafe and played records on the jukebox. But it was also there they hatched a plan to become partners in crime and help themselves to easy money.

For almost a year, they targeted, enticed, threatened, robbed and assaulted numerous gay men. Denovan was the bait.

He would go into toilets and lure the victims to isolated areas where Miller lay in wait pretending to be a drunk. Then he would pounce, threaten and, if necessary, beat up the victim while Denovan rifled their pockets.

The scam worked well and often. But on April 6, it went seriously wrong.

That was the night they singled out general dealer John Cremin, 48.

He was robbed of his watch, a knife, a bank book and £67. But he was beaten so severely with a plank that he died of massive head injuries. The killers celebrated by splashing out on drinks with stolen £5 notes. Miller even lit a cigarette with one of the fivers.

The next night, they went to the movies and watched Tommy The Toreador, a musical with Tommy Steele. As they partied, a dog walker found Cremin’s body and initially it was thought he had fallen.

Two days later, the Daily Record carried a brief story appealing for possible relatives of a missing man found dead to come forward.

And it was that report which was to be instrumental in bringing the killers to justice.

A post mortem eventually revealed Cremin had been murdered. By that time, Miller and Denovan were running scared.

Denovan had seen the Record’s coverage, cut it out and put it in his wallet.

But the pair continued to attack men in the park and when Denovan was arrested on an indecency charge, the cutting was found.

Eventually, his conscience got the better of him and he confessed all to his dad Jimmy, a law-abiding shop manager, who told police.

The youngster gave crucial evidence against Miller during the trial. And it took the jury just 33 minutes to convict both teenagers.

But while Miller was found guilty of capital murder, judge Lord Wheatley said Denovan’s part in the killing was not a capital offence and would result only in an indefinite detention.

When he came to sentence Miller, the judge reached for the black cap.

Women jurors wept as he said: “Anthony Joseph Miller, in respect of the verdict of capital murder just received for which the law imposes but one sentence, the sentence of the court is that you be taken from this place to the prison of Barlinnie, Glasgow, therein to be detained until the seventh day of December next and upon that day within the said prison of Barlinnie, Glasgow, between the hours of eight o’clock and 10 o’clock forenoon, you will suffer death by hanging, which is pronounced for doom.’’

At the mention of that last phrase, he touched his wig with the black tricorn.

The Miller family started a petition, which attracted 30,000 names. The appeal was fixed for the execution date.

Len visited his client often to keep him informed. He said: “His attitude was that if it were the will of God then he would be reprieved. If it were not God’s will, then it would not happen.

“I found this an extraordinary attitude in one so young. In those weeks following his conviction Tony Miller was acquiring a maturity far beyond his years.”

The appeal was dismissed as “completely devoid of substance”.

Len recalls his anger with the three judges.

He explained: “This was a capital case. A boy’s life was at stake but we were made to feel that it was impertinence to bring that case into the Appeal Court.”

A new date was fixed for the execution – December 22, 1960.

All that was left was the petition to the Scottish Secretary John Maclay, asking him to recommend the royal prerogative, as public opposition to the death penalty in general gathered force. This, too, was rejected.

The day before the execution, Miller’s mum Marie sat in her living room and stared blankly into the coal fire as she told the Record: “Tony will be hanged but I will never remember him as a killer.

“Now is the end of everything for Tony and me. He used to bring stray cats and dogs into the house – once an injured bird.

“Violence was alien to him. But what’s done cannot be undone.”

Len said: “I could not believe what was happening. They were actually going to hang the boy. Here we were in the latter part of the 20th century in a civilised community which was going to hang a 19-year-old boy.

“Until the Miller case, I had probably been in favour of capital punishment. But I realised this case had made me a bitter abolitionist.

“The barbarity and the futility of it all were inconsistent with our claims to be a civilised society.

“Not only were they going to destroy a life that should be saved, a life that did not belong to them, but a punishment far greater than any other that man could ever possibly devise was being handed out to two innocent individuals – the parents of the condemned boy. At 8.02 on the morning of Thursday, December 22, 1960, Tony Miller was hanged. It would be the last hanging in Barlinnie.”

The hangman was Robert Leslie Stewart, known as Jock. Brought up close to Edinburgh’s Saughton Prison, he carried out 21 hangings in his career.

So, three mornings before Christmas, Miller became the last teenager to be executed in Britain, after spending the night in the cell last occupied by mass murderer Peter Manuel.

Confirming his death, a spokesman said: “He was very composed and there was no trouble at all.”

Only one more Scot, Henry John Burnett, was executed – at Aberdeen in 1963 – before hanging was abolished in 1965.

And that was not before time, according to lawyer Len.

He said: “To those who say it is a deterrent, I say it is not. I have never seen any evidence from any country in the world that shows

capital punishment is a deterrent.

“The great majority of murders, in my experience, are committed in the heat of a moment. Possible punishment is the farthest thing from the mind of the killer.

“I was instructed in a number of murder cases over the years and I never came across one where the accused had stopped to think what punishment would be imposed.

“I consider capital punishment, especially hanging, to be barbaric, repugnant and quite unworthy of a civilised society.

“It has been abolished not just in this country; the very first title of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the death penalty.

“In other words, capital punishment is totally outlawed throughout the European Union. I pray to God that will always be the case.”

