Murderpedia has thousands of hours of work behind it. To keep creating
new content, we kindly appreciate any donation you can give to help
the Murderpedia project stay alive. We have many
plans and enthusiasm
to keep expanding and making Murderpedia a better site, but we really
need your help for this. Thank you very much in advance.
Miles
William GIFFARD
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics:
Parricide
Number of victims: 2
Date of murder:
November 7,
1952
Date of arrest:
Next day
Date of birth: 1927
Victims profile: His father Charles, 53 and his mother Elizabeth
Method of murder:
Beating witha piece of lead pipe
Location: Cornwall, England, United Kingdom
Status: Executed by hanging at Horfield Prison in Bristol on
24 February 1953
Miles William Giffard
(1927 - 24 February 1953) twice played cricket for the Cornwall County
Cricket Club in the 1948 Minor Counties Championship and was later
executed for the murder of his parents.
Education
Giffard was born in Oct/Nov/Dec of 1925 (source Genes
reunited) and educated at Rugby School in Rugby in Warwickshire and at
Blundell's School in Tiverton.
Cricket
Miles Giffard played cricket for the Cornwall County
Cricket Club in the 1948 Minor Counties Championship, playing against
Devon at St Clare Ground in Penzance on 16th July 1948 and Surrey Second
XI at Kennington Oval on 4th and 5th August 1948.
Crime
By the age of 14 Giffard was being seen by a
psychiatrist who was concerned at his mental deterioration. By the time
Miles was 26 he was in the words of his doctor, an 'idle little waster'
who, despite being given every opportunity, had been unable to hold a
steady job. Miles’ parents were busy and well respected people in St
Austell, his father Charles being a solicitor and clerk of the court to
St. Austell magistrates and his mother Elizabeth was vice chairman of
the St Austell Conservative Association and President of the
Conservative Women's Association.
It is reported that:
“Miles hated his father and in return his father
never missed an opportunity to put him down. In 1952 he met a girl that
he liked and he soon developed a serious relationship with her.
Gabrielle Vallance was 19 years old and lived in London. His parents
however did not like her and told him that he had to give her up. In one
of the letters he wrote to the girl he said , 'Short of doing him in, I
see no future in the world at all.' On the 7 November he asked his
father if he could borrow the car but his father said no. That afternoon
his parents went out and Miles stayed at home brooding and getting drunk.
By the time his parents returned about 7.30pm Miles had decided what to
do. He went down to the garage and using a piece of lead pipe he beat
his father to death. Taking the same piece of pipe into the house he
then went into the kitchen and bludgeoned his mother to death. He took
the bodies and tipped them over the cliff at the end of the garden and
then got in the car and drove to see his girlfriend in London. The
bodies were found the next day and the police had little trouble tracing
Giffard and arresting him. Despite clear evidence of schizophrenia
presented at his trial at Bodmin Assizes it took the jury only 35
minutes to find him guilty and he was sentenced to death.”
Execution
Giffard was hanged at Horfield Prison in Bristol on
24 February 1953.
TV
production
John Castle played the part of Miles Giffard in the
1970 production “Conceptions of Murder: Conversation Piece” directed by
Graham Evans.
Wikipedia.org
Giffard, Miles
Miles Giffard was a worry to his parents and at the
age of 14 was being seen by a psychiatrist who was concerned at his
mental deterioration.
It was thought that part of the problem was that he
had been oppressed by a very strict father. By the time Miles was 26 he
was in the words of his doctor, an 'idle little waster'. He had been
given every opporunity and had even attended public school but had still
been unable to hold a steady job. Miles thought it was much easier to
live off his parents. Both his mother and father were busy and well
respected people in St Austell.
His father Charles was 53 and clerk of the court to
St. Austell magistrates and his mother Elizabeth was vice chairman of
the St Austell Conservative Association and President of the
Conservative Women's Association. Miles hated his father and in return
his father never missed an opportunity to put him down.
In 1952 he met a girl that he liked and he soon
developed a serious relationship with her. Gabrielle Vallance was 19
years old and lived in London. His parents however did not like her and
told him that he had to give her up. In one of the letters he wrote to
the girl he said , 'Short of doing him in, I see no future in the world
at all.'
On the 7 November he asked his father if he could
borrow the car but his father said no. That afternoon his parents went
out and Miles stayed at home brooding and getting drunk. By the time his
parents returned about 7.30pm Miles had decided what to do. He went down
to the garage and using a piece of lead pipe he beat his father to death.
Taking the same piece of pipe into the house he then went into the
kitchen and bludgeoned his mother to death. He took the bodies and
tipped them over the cliff at the end of the garden and then got in the
car and drove to see his girlfriend in London.
The bodies were found the next day and the police had
little trouble tracing Giffard and arresting him. Despite clear evidence
of schizophrenia presented at his trial at Bodmin Assizes it took the
jury only 35 minutes to find him guilty and he was sentenced to death.
He was hanged at Bristol's Horfield Prison on 24 February 1953.
Real-Crime.co.uk
Schizo Son Slays Parents
TrueCrimeLibrary.com
“Short of doing him in, I see no
future in the world at all,” 26-year-old Miles Giffard wrote to his girl
friend, complaining of his father, who had ordered him to give her up.
Giffard’s problem was that he was unemployed,
dependent on scrounging off his parents. In August 1952 he left their
cliff-top home, overlooking Cornwall’s St. Austell Bay, to lead a hand-to-mouth
existence in London, where he had met and become infatuated with a girl
who lived with her mother in Chelsea. She found him attractive, but told
him he was scruffy and should tidy himself up. He lied to her that his
parents had failed to send his clothes on to him, and on October 31st he
hitch-hiked back to Cornwall to see if he could scrounge more money.
It took him three days to get there, and his attempt
to screw more cash out of his long-suffering father was unsuccessful.
Charles Giffard, a solicitor and clerk to St. Austell Magistrates' Court,
had had enough of the son who had never had a steady job despite his
public-school education. Miles had studied law at his father’s
insistence, but had given it up to train to be an estate agent, and
could not settle to either.
After arriving home he phoned his girl friend every
day. His father had ordered him to stay in Cornwall and resume his
studies, he told her. She told him he should return to London, find work
and become financially independent, and he decided to rejoin her at the
weekend.
On Friday, November 7th, he phoned her at 5.30 p.m.
to say he was coming to London to conduct some business for his father,
who was letting him borrow his car. Then he set out to drive to Chelsea.
When his parents’ maid returned to their house at
9.30 p.m. after an evening out she found the kitchen floor covered with
blood. Police discovered more blood in the garage, but it was not until
daylight that the body of Charles Giffard was found at the bottom of the
cliff near his home. His wife’s broken body lay nearby.
Detectives guessed that the missing Miles Giffard was
probably on his way to Chelsea. They were right. Arriving in the early
hours of the Saturday, Miles told his girl friend he had an appointment
at 10 o’clock that morning. In fact he went off to sell some of his
mother’s jewellery for £50.
Then he took his girl friend to a cinema, followed by
a pub crawl during which he told her he had murdered his parents. She
didn’t believe him.
At closing time he hailed a taxi and took her back to
her mother’s home in Tite Street.
Police were waiting, and he was arrested. Admitting killing his father
and mother, he said: “I was tight for money and had no means of tidying
myself up, so I said I would go home and get my clothing. But in fact I
wanted to go home and try to get some money from my father.”
As his father got out of his car in the garage Miles
Giffard had beaten him to death with an iron bar. Then he had bludgeoned
his mother in the kitchen, and had used a wheelbarrow to take the two
bodies to the cliff-edge and tip them over. His mother was still alive
when she hit the rocks.
“I can only say that I have had a brainstorm,”
Giffard told detectives. “I cannot account for my actions. I had drunk
about half a bottle of whisky on the Friday afternoon before all this
happened. It just seemed to me that nothing mattered as long as I got
back to London and my girl friend. She just fascinated me.”
At his trial for his parents’ murder the court heard
that he had a long history of mental instability for which he had
received treatment. He was schizophrenic but not insane. Convicted and
sentenced to death, he was hanged at Bristol Prison on February 24th,
1953.
Miles Giffard
Bristol awakes to the last hanging at Horfield Prison, following an all-night
protest vigil. 24th Feb 1963 Members of the public read the notices
confirming the execution of Miles Giffard he was hanged at Horfield
Prision for the murder
of his father.
