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Originally Posted by Niamh.
Whaaaat  |
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On 3 December 1966, Grantham attempted to rob a taxi driver, Felix Reese, in Osnabrück, Lower Saxony, West Germany. A struggle between Grantham and the driver followed, and Reese died from a gunshot wound to the head.[5][6][7] In his statement to the police following his arrest, Grantham said that he did not know the gun was loaded and it had gone off during the struggle, which would have resulted in a conviction for manslaughter if a jury believed this version of events. However, at his trial in 1967 he was subsequently convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Although he had committed the murder in West Germany, he served the entirety of his imprisonment in various British prisons. This was because soldiers and officers convicted of any criminal offence that warrants a sentence of over two years are automatically transferred to Her Majesty's Prison Service, since they are also automatically dishonourably discharged.
Grantham was released in 1977, having served 10 years. While he was in Leyhill Prison, he acted in several plays for inmates and members of the public, and edited the prison newspaper. He was encouraged to get more involved in acting professionally by Labour Party politician T. Dan Smith, who had also been an inmate at Leyhill in the mid 1970s. He also met actress Louise Jameson during her visit to Leyhill in the mid-1970s; she had also encouraged him to take up acting and he became good friends with her.
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Always found it weird that he was allowed to become so famous and celebrated...