Michael Arditti

Victims of a cruel prejudice: the last two men to be executed for sodomy in England

Chris Bryant describes in painful detail how James Pratt and John Smith, working-class men from the Midlands, fell foul of the ‘bloodthirsty English justice system’ in 1835

The condemned cell in Newgate. [Getty Images]
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  • James and John: A True Story of Prejudice and Murder

    Chris Bryant

    Bloomsbury, pp. 320, £25

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