High treason in the United Kingdom sentenced to be shot or hanged for this offence instead of for treason (one death sentence was commuted). Theodore Schurch was the last person to be put to death for treachery, in 1946. He was also the last person to be executed for a crime other than murder. Josef Jakobs, a German spy executed for treachery, was the last person to be executed in the Tower of London. The Treachery Act 1940 was suspended in February 1946, and was repealed in 1967. In June 1945 the Treason Act 1945 abolished the special rules of evidence and procedure formerly used in
Karel Richard Richter Richter filed an appeal which was, after much discussion in the Security Service, rejected. Faced with his imminent execution, Richter wrote a letter to one of the MI5 officers: "You can rely upon it that I shall not be less brave than Jakobs; I too will know how to die, yet not as a Nazi spy on your gallows, but as a man." On 10 December 1941, Richter was hanged at Wandsworth Prison. A procedure that normally took around 15 seconds, took over 17 minutes. When Albert Pierrepoint, the executioner, entered Richter's cell to bind his wrists, Richter charged at