The Trial of William Joyce

Out of Print

Edited with Some Notes on Other Recent Trials for Treason

This new series of outstanding present-day Trials edited by a barrister, the well¬known author who writes under the pseudonym of Ephesian, will contain a full report of the proceedings at the trial, an account of the principal features of the case, and, usually, a chapter on some pertinent legal, medico-legal or historical subject.

In addition each volume will be profusely illustrated. The volumes are intended not only for contemporary reading but to serve also as permanent records of the present-day machinery of justice.

Joyce survived the war and was captured by British forces at Flensburg, near the German border with Denmark. He was taken to London and tried at the Old Bailey on three counts of high treason. The only evidence offered that he had begun broadcasting from Germany while his British passport was valid was the testimony of a London police inspector who had questioned him before the war while he was an active member of the British Union of Fascists and claimed to have recognised his voice on a propaganda broadcast in the early weeks of the war (Joyce had previous convictions for assault and riotous assembly in the 1930s).

During the processing of the charges Joyce's American nationality came to light, and it seemed that he would have to be acquitted, based upon a lack of jurisdiction; he could not be convicted of betraying a country that was not his own. He was acquitted of the first and second charges.

However, the Attorney General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, successfully argued that Joyce's possession of a British passport, even though he had mis-stated his nationality to get it, entitled him (until it expired) to British diplomatic protection in Germany and therefore he owed allegiance to the king at the time he commenced working for the Germans. It was on this basis that Joyce was convicted of the third charge and sentenced to death on 19 September 1945.

Joyce was executed on 3 January 1946 at Wandsworth Prison, aged 39