Age: 56
Sex: male
Crime: murder
Date Of Execution: 26 Apr 1951
Execution Place: Wandsworth
Method: hanging
Executioner: Albert Pierrepoint
Source: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/Details?uri=C10854181
James Virrels murdered Alice Kate Roberts 40 by battering her and stabbing her to death at 56 Kingsland Road, Broadwater, Worthing on 29 January 1951.
He said that Alice Roberts had flown into a rage and attacked him with a knife and that he had struggled with her and stabbed her with the knife several times but that she got up again and so he took a chopper from outside the back door and hit her several times with it.
She was found dead in her home on the settee with a silk stocking around her neck and head wounds. She was not discovered until the following day when a postmand tried to deliver a registered delivery and found her on the settee with a blanket over her.
see National Archives - PCOM 9/2068, HO 45/25671, ASSI 90/38
see The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer - Monday 05 February 1951
