Treachery Act 1940 facts for kids
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| Long title | An Act to make further provision for the trial and punishment of treachery. |
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| Territorial extent | applied to anything done:
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| Dates | |
| Royal Assent | 23 May 1940 |
| Commencement | 23 May 1940 |
| Repeal date | 1 January 1968 (all other than with respect to Scotland and Northern Ireland) 18 July 1973 (Scotland and Northern Ireland) |
| Other legislation | |
| Related legislation | Treason Act 1945 |
| Repealing legislation | Criminal Law Act 1967 (c.58), s. 10(2) and Part 1 of Schedule 3; Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1973, s. 1(1) and Part V of Schedule 1 |
| Status: Repealed | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
The Treachery Act 1940 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom effective during World War II to facilitate the prosecution and execution of enemy spies, suspended afterwards, and repealed in 1968 or 1973, territory depending. The law was passed on 23 May 1940, in the month after Nazi Germany invaded France and Winston Churchill became prime minister.
Contents
Reasons for the Act
The Treachery Act was deemed necessary because treason still had its own special rules of evidence and procedure which made it a difficult offence to prove and prosecute (see Treason Act 1695). The newer offence, a felony, was designed to make convictions easier as it could be proved under the same rules of evidence as ordinary offences. It was also needed because there was doubt whether the treason laws were applicable to saboteurs.
The Act was always intended to be a temporary emergency measure which would be repealed after the War. It was rushed through Parliament in two weeks, passing the Lords in a few minutes and receiving royal assent on the same day.
Treachery and treason
Some argue that the Act could easily have replaced the current, ancient statutes that relate to and define treason. After the war people continued to be prosecuted under the Treason Act 1351 for disloyalty during the War.
Besides the laxer rules of procedure and evidence, the other main difference was the death sentence for treason was mandatory, whereas the death sentence for treachery could be commuted by the court under the Judgement of Death Act 1823. No sentences were commuted by the courts. One was commuted by the Home Secretary.
Extent
Breach of a duty of allegiance was not an element of treachery. Section 4 of the Act provided:
This Act shall apply to anything done—
- (a) by a British subject elsewhere than in a Dominion, India, Burma, or Southern Rhodesia;
- (b) by any person subject to the Naval Discipline Act, to military law or to the Air Force Act, in any place whatsoever; or
- (c) by any person in the United Kingdom, or in any British ship or aircraft, not being a dominion ship or aircraft.
"Dominion" meant any Dominion within the meaning of the Statute of Westminster 1931, except Newfoundland, and included any territory administered by the Government as a Dominion (section 5(1)).
Uses of the Act
Between 1940 and 1946, 19 people, including five British subjects, were executed for treachery. The first British subject to be executed under the law was George Johnson Armstrong, who was hanged at HMP Wandsworth on 10 July 1941. German agent Josef Jakobs, the last person to be executed in the Tower of London, was tried by a military court and executed by firing squad under this law. Jakobs was the only one to be shot instead of hanged under the act, since he had been captured as an enemy combatant. The last person to be executed under the law—and the last person to be executed in the United Kingdom for an offence other than murder—was British soldier Theodore Schurch.
Another person, Portuguese diplomat Regério de Magalhaes Peixoto de Menezes, was sentenced to death, but had his sentence commuted by the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison, to penal servitude for life. He was deported in 1949. Dorothy O'Grady was also sentenced to death for treachery, but had her conviction overturned on appeal.
Suspension and repeal
The Treachery Act 1940 was brought into being for the duration of the "war emergency" (section 6). The Treason Act 1945 enabled treason to be proved with the normal rules of evidence, abolishing its special status. The Treachery Act was suspended on 24 February 1946, and was repealed in part in 1968, and totally in 1973.
See also
- Capital punishment in the United Kingdom
- High treason in the United Kingdom
- Defence of the Realm Act 1914
- Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939
- Defence Regulations
