Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in and around Swansea by Bernard Lewis

Author:Bernard Lewis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: TRU000000: TRUE CRIME / General
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781783037650
Publisher: Wharncliffe
Published: 2009-09-16T16:00:00+00:00

The Greek sailors, Ahpis (left) and Selapatane, await their fate. South West Wales Media. The Cambrian

Selapatane spoke through his interpreter only to say that he was innocent of the crime of which he had been convicted. The judge then passed a sentence of death on both men in the prescribed manner, speaking over Alepis’s repeated assertions that he knew nothing of the matter of which he had been convicted. Alepis concluded by adding that the law in England and Wales was very different to that of his own country. Had he been tried in Greece he was certain that he would have been acquitted. The judge, perhaps sensing a little bewilderment on the part of the condemned men, went to some length to emphasise that the sentence that had been passed on them would duly be put into effect. As such they would be well advised to make their spiritual arrangements accordingly. Suitable ministers of religion would no doubt be provided on request by the appropriate authorities.

It was later reported that the enormity of what they had done and what an awful fate awaited them began to weigh heavily on the condemned men. Their previously indifferent outlook had departed and they now spent much of their time in reading Greek scriptural works, provided for them by the Archimandrite of the Greek Church. This gentleman was also in personal attendance on them and it seems his exhortations produced a change in attitude though confessions were not forthcoming. Selapatane wrote a letter home on his own behalf as well as one for his fellow countryman outlining their coming fate, but still protesting their innocence.

The date of execution was set for 20 March 1858, little more than a month after the crime was committed. As the execution was to be staged in public it attracted a large number of spectators, many of whom the Cambrian newspaper confirmed as being of the ‘lower orders’. Many of these thousands of people, including ‘showmen, booths-men, gamblers etc’ arrived on the day before the execution, many of them sped in by the railway. Also present were labourers, carpenters, engineers and mechanics, together with women with children in arms, shoeless lads with scanty tattered clothing and a healthy contingent of what the Cambrian called the ‘city Arabs’. The newspaper grudgingly admitted that some of the ‘… better grade of society …’ were also drawn to the spectacle.

On the day of the execution the sun shone brightly and the sky was clear. The scaffold had been erected on the south west corner of the prison building, at an angle opposite the infirmary and the Union poor law house. Every inch of ground was packed with spectators, some of whom had climbed into trees and onto the roofs of houses in order to get a better view of the macabre proceedings.

William Calcraft, the public executioner, had arrived at Swansea train station on the night before the planned execution. A large crowd had gathered to see him and he emerged from the station a rather corpulent figure, aged about fifty-five to sixty years of age.

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