‘This Dog Is Not Sleeping’

In 1981, Britain’s Conservative government endorsed the execution of Seymour Thomas in Belize, shortly before the nation’s independence. This decision was consistent with support among sections of the Conservative Party for the resumption of hanging in the UK, but Thomas would be the last person executed in a British Dependent Territory. This chapter explores the reasons why Britain’s tolerance of the Dependent Territories death penalty became difficult to sustain over subsequent years. They included calls for abolition from governors who were uncomfortable administering the prerogative of mercy; an increasingly interventionist British approach to Dependent Territories governance in response to drug trafficking and corruption; abolitionist trends in international law and European allies’ foreign policies and repeated votes by MPs against the reintroduction of the death penalty in Britain. An increase in violent crime, coupled with the Caribbean’s booming tourist industry, also increased the likelihood of foreign nationals’ involvement in capital cases and threatened to cast an unflattering international spotlight on British complicity in capital punishment.