John Straffen
John Thomas Straffen (27 February 1930 – 19 November 2007) was a British serial killer who was the longest-serving prisoner in British legal history. Straffen killed two young girls in the summer of 1951. He was found to be unfit to plead and committed to Broadmoor Hospital; during a brief escape in 1952 he killed again. This time he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Reprieved because of his mental state, he had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment and he remained in prison until his death more than 55 years later.
Read more about John Straffen: Early Life, Criminal Career, Mental Health, Child Killings, Arrest and Conviction, Escape From Broadmoor and The Murder of Linda Bowyer, Murder Trial, Reprieve and Prison, Death
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“Ambivalence reaches the level of schizophrenia in our treatment of violence among the young. Parents do not encourage violence, but neither do they take up arms against the industries which encourage it. Parents hide their eyes from the books and comics, slasher films, videos and lyrics which form the texture of an adolescent culture. While all successful societies have inhibited instinct, ours encourages it. Or at least we profess ourselves powerless to interfere with it.”
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