The Divisional court martial, presided over by Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Spring, the Commanding Officer of the 11th (Service) Battalion of the Essex Regiment, lasted 20 minutes, and questions have subsequently been raised about its competence. The hearing found Farr guilty and sentenced him to death. General Sir Douglas Haig, as the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force subsequently confirmed the execution order, and Farr was shot by a firing squad made up from men of his own regiment at 6.00 A.M. on 18 October 1916, near Carnoy on the Somme. His family have always argued that he was suffering from shell shock at the time. Harry Farr's wife, Gertrude, then living in Kensington, London, was first told her husband had been killed in action, but later when her pension was stopped, she was informed he had been shot for cowardice and she was not entitled to receive a war widow's pension. In 1992, Gertrude and her family discovered that some documents were being released by the government and that Andrew MacKinlay MP was involved in a campaign for justice for those in similar positions to Farr. When they got hold of the court martial papers, they were horrified to discover that Farr had been sent back to the front, when he in fact needed urgent medical treatment. Despite a sustained campaign, Prime Minister John Major refused a pardon. Gertrude Farr died in 1993. On 15 August 2006, Harry Farr's family announced that Farr was to be granted a pardon. The announcement came as Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, said that he would seek a statutory group pardon; i.e. one achieved through an Act of Parliament for all those executed regardless of the individual merits of the case. Des Browne told BBC Radio 4's "Today" programme that, after 90 years, "the evidence just doesn't exist inside the cases individually". It has been suggested that the move would avoid numerous court cases. A group pardon would also exonerate those who had been properly found guilty of cowardice. A historian said that of cases in the Norfolk Regiment he had examined there was at least one who had a history of desertion. Historians have criticised such a move in the past as trying to apply modern standards retroactively. The mass pardon of 306 British Empire soldiers executed for certain offences during the Great War was enacted in section 359 of the Armed Forces Act 2006, which came into effect on royal assent on 8 November 2006.