TNAG-1115-FCO40-1387-Future-staffing-of-the-Dependent-Territories-1982 — Page 71

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man.

T

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.