British-born Nicholas Ingram has been executed in the electric chair in the US after two appeals to the US Supreme Court were turned down.

Ingram, 31, had a previous stay of execution granted last night only an hour before he was due to die.

A spokeswoman for Georgia's prison service said Ingram spent his last hours "quiet and stone-faced" and declined a final meal.

However, observers at Ingram's execution reported he was agitated and spat at the prison warden before being strapped into the chair at Jackson State prison near Atlanta.

Asked whether he wished to make a final statement, Ingram is said to have replied simply: "Let's get on with it".

Two chaplains and officials from Georgia's prison service were with him in the execution chamber when he died.

Ingram's lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith witnessed his execution.

Mr Stafford Smith, a Briton, has specialised in Death Row cases since moving to the US 17 years ago.

As he entered the prison for his client's execution Mr Stafford Smith told reporters: ""What we are about to do is utterly, utterly barbaric."

Clemency pleas

Ingram had been on death row since 1983 for murdering J C Sawyer and injuring his wife, Eunice Sawyer, during a robbery.

Ingram's appeal lawyers argued that he was given an anti-psychotic drug during his trial that made him appear to be unemotional and remorseless.

Ingram had dual British and American nationality because he was born in England to a British mother and American father.

His case had been taken up by the British media, prompting a flood of pleas for clemency - including one from the Archbishop of Canterbury - to Georgia's governor.

After the execution, a hearse sped past the gatehouse of the prison to loud cheers from a group of capital punishment supporters.

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