John Straffen

John Straffen
Mug shot of Straffen, taken after his August 1951 arrest
Born	John Thomas Straffen (1930-02-27)27 February 1930 Bordon Camp, Hampshire, England
Died	19 November 2007(2007-11-19) (aged 77) HM Prison Frankland, County Durham, England
Motive	Inconclusive (likely revenge with grandiosity accompaniment)
Criminal penalty	Death (24 July 1952)[1] Commuted to life imprisonment (29 August 1952)[2]
Details
Victims	3
Span of crimes	15 July 1951 – 29 April 1952
Country	United Kingdom
Date apprehended	9 August 1951

John Thomas Straffen (27 February 1930 – 19 November 2007) was a British serial killer who committed the murder of three prepubescent girls between the ages of five and nine in the counties of Somerset and Berkshire, England, between 1951 and 1952.

All three of Straffen's victims were murdered by strangulation. His first two victims were murdered in Bath, Somerset, in the summer of 1951. Arrested shortly after the murder of his second victim, Straffen denied any sexual or sadistic motive for the murders, which he insisted he had committed to simply "annoy" the police, whom he blamed for most of his problems.

Tried before Mr. Justice Oliver at Taunton Assizes in October 1951, Straffen was found unfit to plead on the grounds of diminished responsibility and committed to indefinite detention within Broadmoor Hospital. He briefly escaped from this facility in April 1952 and murdered a third child in the village of Farley Hill, Berkshire, in the four hours he remained at liberty prior to his recapture.

Straffen was brought to trial for this third murder at Winchester Assizes in July 1952; he was ultimately convicted and sentenced to death, although his sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment by the Home Secretary. He remained incarcerated until his death within HM Prison Frankland in November 2007.

At the time of Straffen's death, he was the longest-serving prisoner in British history, having served over 55 years' imprisonment.