Following a recent blitz of my Fairport Convention albums I was reminded, courtesy of their concept album of the remarkable story of John Babbaconbe Lee, the infamous Englishman found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by hanging only to survive three attempts at the hangman’s noose.

Born in Devon, England in 1864, he was a sailor in the Royal Navy and later a known thief who, at the age of twenty one, was convicted of the murder of his employer, Emma Keyse at her home in Babbacombe, near Torquay.

Found with her throat cut and the house on fire (believed to be an attempt to cover up the dead body) Lee was accused of being the only person in the house at the time as well as holding a grudge against Keyse for lowering his wages. Lee was also found with a cut on his arm and despite the circumstantial evidence at a farcical trial he was given the death penalty.

“The judge sits high and mighty and he asks me who I am
The robes he wears impress me but he looks a kindly man
“To all who’ve come to see me, for those that’d prove me guilty
May the joker hear your call and show you all more mercy”

“The man who’d defend me was ill and couldn’t come
His brother came to lend me help and I knew I was undone
“Do just what you want with me, I don’t have a choice
You’d do as well without me as I’m not allowed to use my voice”

John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee
John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee”

…from Trial Song by Fairport Convention, 1971

What then followed was three attempts to hang him at Exeter Prison with the first attempt on February 23rd 1885. Hooded and a noose around his neck, the trap doors below his feet failed to open leaving him dangling on the tips of his feet and following further attempts and subsequent investigations it was found that the scaffold assembly had not been put together properly. The then Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt ordered the sentence be changed to life imprisonment.

Twenty two years later Babbacombe was released and milked his fame for all it was worth. Leaving his wife for another woman, he eventually moved to America where it is believed he died in Milwaukee in 1945 aged eighty.