Book delves into detail of Brum's last hanging

Oswald Grey was hanged at Winston Green prison for the murder of Thomas Bates, left

- STEPHANIE BALLOO News Reporter

IT was an ordinary summer's evening and newsagent Thomas Bates was about to shut up his Edgbaston shop when he was shot dead.

His mother and a friend found him slumped at the counter of his Lee Bank Road store, bleeding from his chest. He died at the scene on that night in 1962.

Oswald Grey, the man convicted of his murder, was hanged in the final capital punishment at Winson Green prison. The 20-year-old Jamaican-born man was also the final black man to face execution in Britain.

But the 'hasty injustice' of his sentence has been forgotten until now.