Let Him Have It

Factual error: Pierrepoint is depicted as having a London accent. In real life, however, he was from the north of England, and had a Yorkshire accent, which sounds completely different. This is proved in a BBC interview with him, dating from the 1970s.

UKFilmFan

Revealing mistake: On the morning of Bentley's hanging, his father walks into the street and meets the postman. The camera then pulls back to show a streetscape. The gulleys are full of Autumn leaves whereas Bentley was hanged on January 28th. The leaves are there to conceal double yellow lines (which were not introduced in England until February 1956) and in several places they can be seen showing through.

Factual error: When the prison officer played by Michael Elphick is reading from the newspaper about Bentley's case he mentions that the execution is to take place in five days' time. The day of the execution was only revealed two days before it was to take place and could have been any day during that week. Also, prisoners weren't allowed newspapers which featured themselves in it, those articles were always removed.

Derek Bentley: Let him have it, Chris.

Derek Bentley: I went National Service Medical yesterday.
Chris Craig: Yeah?
Derek Bentley: They said I was sub normal.
Chris Craig: You ain't sub normal, Del - you ain't normal, but you ain't sub normal.

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