 After the sentence had been carried out a county coroner would visit Halifax and convene a jury of 12 men, sometimes the same individuals who had found the felon guilty, and ask them to give an account under oath of the circumstances of the conviction and execution, for the official records.The punishment could only be meted out to those within the confines of the Forest of Hardwick, of which Halifax was a part.The gibbet was about from the boundary of the area, and if the condemned person succeeded in escaping from the forest then he could not legally be brought back to face his punishment.