Dennis Whitty was (along with his accomplice Russell Pascoe) the third-to-last prisoner to be executed by hanging in a British prison. He was 22.
He was executed at 8.00 am in Winchester Prison on December 17, 1963 for his part in the murder of 64-year-old Cornish farmer William Rowe. Whitty and Pascoe had believed that Rowe kept a fortune hidden on his farm. Although Rowe did keep the sum of £3,000 in his farmhouse, Whitty and Pascoe, after having beaten and stabbed Rowe to death, escaped with just £4. They were arrested shortly afterward.
At the same time as Whitty was being hanged at Winchester, Pascoe, aged 23, was suffering the same fate at Bristol's Horfield Prison.
Only two more prisoners would be executed in Britain, in August 1964.