HM Prison Pentonville - Notable Former Inmates

Notable Former Inmates

• 1879: Charles Peace, notorious burglar and murderer.
• 1895: Oscar Wilde spent time in Pentonville before being transferred to Wandsworth.
• 1910: Hawley Harvey Crippen (Dr Crippen) was hanged in the prison in 1910 after being found guilty of murdering his wife.
• 1912: Frederick Seddon the poisoner, was hanged in the prison in 1912.
• 1916: Sir Roger Casement.
• 1940: Udham Singh, was an Indian independence activist and hanged at Pentonville Prison On 31 July 1940.
• 1940: Arthur Koestler was detained for six weeks after arriving in England without papers in 1940. His novel Darkness at Noon was published in England while he was still in Pentonville.
• 1946: Neville Heath was hanged in the prison in 1946 after having been convicted of murdering two women.
• 1950: Timothy Evans, wrongfully accused co-tenant of John Christie.
• 1953: John Christie was hanged in the prison in 1953 after having been convicted of murdering his wife.
• 1974: Simon Dee, a radio/television personality, served 28 days for non-payment of council tax on his former Chelsea home that he had not shared with his first wife since 1971/2.
• c1980: Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers served a sentence for drug possession.
• 1984: Taki Theodoracopulos, gossip columnist for The Spectator, was imprisoned in Pentonville for three months in 1984 on a cocaine possession charge. He wrote a book about the experience titled Nothing to Declare.
• 1994: David Irving, writer.
• 1999: John Alford spent six weeks in Pentonville in 1999 after selling illegal drugs to a reporter.
• 2005: Pete Doherty of The Libertines and Babyshambles spent four nights in Pentonville in February 2005 while unable to make bail on charges which were later dropped. He subsequently wrote a song about the prison, named "Pentonville", which is on the Babyshambles album Down In Albion. He spent a further 6 weeks in Pentonville between May and June 2011 for cocaine possession.
• 2009: Boy George, in 2009, for the assault and false imprisonment of a male escort.
• 2010: George Michael, in 2010, for drug driving offences.