2
man.
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Four months
The notices said "Go Home"! There was background.
previously the Legislature had voted unanimously for my
predecessor's withdrawal: also his replacement by a local
Instead, we arrived from half-way around the world.
Three years on, it was very different. Now the local pressure
was strong for us to stay. And (for us embarrassingly) the
Legislature voted unanimously against the appointed successor.
This was Mr Patrick Reardon, who sadly died soon after.
3.
Obviously I was asked why I could not stay. I explained
that my appointment was an FCO one: I had reached FCO
retirement age: the rules were strict. In total honesty, I
could not touch upon whatever the Department thought. Nor,
above all, upon the complexities of capital punishment as they
bore upon the Governorship. When I was appointed, FCO policy
was adamant. Whatever the legislation, there were to be no more
hangings in the Dependent Territories. In 1979, after the change'
of Government, the House of Commons voted against the
reintroduction of capital punishment in Britain. But nothing
was said about the Dependent Territories. In due course, it
became clear that the old rules (and they are very old rules)
still applied in a handful of tiny Dependencies whose own laws
permitted execution. In these Dependencies, a power of life or
death remained with the Governors.
4. The Department knows that during my Governorship this issue
was not academic. For almost 18 months, our prison cells held
two men under sentence of death or close to: and local public
opinion, well fuelled by the BVI political leadership, was very
strong indeed for their hanging. Within my term, I uncomfortably
accepted that I was likely to have to follow procedures leading
to execution. It was difficult to see alternative. However,
at almost the last moment, on a point described by one of the
QCs concerned as a "unique legal curiosity", the knot was cut.