Treachery Act 1940

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.[7]

In commending the Bill to the House of Commons, the Home Secretary, Sir John Anderson, explained why the law was necessary:[8]

[T]he scope of Clause 1 of the Bill is substantially the same as the scope of the Treason Acts, but the Treason Acts might not be applicable to persons who are not normally resident within the King's jurisdiction; and moreover the Treason Acts are antiquated, excessively cumbrous and invested with a dignity and ceremonial that seems to us wholly inappropriate to the sort of case with which we are dealing here.[8]

In the House of Lords the Lord Chancellor, Viscount Simon, elaborated:

It is a very doubtful question indeed whether under the existing law of treason you could proceed against an alien who has come here suddenly, surreptitiously by air or otherwise, for the purposes of wreaking clandestine destruction or doing other acts against the safety of the realm. In as much as treason is a crime committed by someone who owes allegiance, it might be well argued that such a person does not owe allegiance to the British Crown. For these reasons it is urgently necessary that this Bill should be passed.[9]

The Act was always intended to be a temporary emergency measure which would be repealed after the War.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.[10]

The first section of the Treachery Act 1940 read:

If, with intent to help the enemy, any person does, or attempts or conspires with any other person to do any act which is designed or likely to give assistance to the naval, military or air operations of the enemy, to impede such operations of His Majesty's forces, or to endanger life, he shall be guilty of felony and shall on conviction suffer death.

Some argue that the Act could easily have replaced the current, ancient statutes that relate to and define treason.[11] 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.

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)).

Sixteen people were shot by firing squad or hanged for treachery.[12] The first British subject to be executed under the law was George Johnson Armstrong, who was hanged at HMP Wandsworth on 10 July 1941.[13] Duncan Scott-Ford was also executed for treachery in November 1942. German agent Josef Jakobs, the last person to be executed in the Tower of London, was court-martialled and executed by firing squad under this Act. The last person to be executed under the Treachery Act was the British soldier Theodore Schurch, executed on 4 January 1946, who was the last person to be executed in the United Kingdom for an offence other than murder.

A seventeenth person, Portuguese diplomat Rogerio 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.[14] He was deported in 1949.[15]

The Treachery Act 1940 was brought into being for the duration of the "war emergency" (section 6). The Treason Act 1945 abolished the special status of treason and enabled treason to be proved with the normal rules of evidence. The Act was suspended on 24 February 1946,[16] and was later repealed in part as to its extent in 1968, with the remainder in 1973.

• 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

• Hansard (House of Commons), 9 May 1940, vol. 360, col. 1412 (presentation)
• Hansard (House of Commons), 22 May 1940, vol.361 col. 185 - 195, 195–235 (second and third reading)
• Hansard (House of Lords), 23 May 1940, vol. 116, col. 391–398 (first, second and third reading)
• Hansard (House of Commons), 23 May 1940, vol. 361, col. 362 – 363 (royal assent)

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Treachery Act 1940 (United Kingdom)

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