GUERNSEY HISTORY
29th April 1964
29th April 1964
Guernsey abolishes the death penalty for murder
Guernsey abolished the death penalty for murder in 1964. It was one year ahead of the United Kingdom.
Although convicts had been sentenced to death in the interim, nobody had been executed on Guernsey since John Tapner’s hanging 110 years earlier.
The States of Deliberation held a two-hour debate on its new Homicide Act on 29 April 1964. The vote on abolishing hanging for murder had come at the end of its reading. 34 voted in favour of bringing the practice to an end. Nineteen voted to retain it.
The move had been instigated by the Bailiff, Sir William Arnold, who proposed that it be replaced by life imprisonment. He called the principle of hanging “untenable” and, as reported in the Birmingham Daily Post, noted that “the trend in most civilised countries is against such a spectacular form of retribution”.
Death penalty officially abolished
The exact wording of the abolition, as included in The Homicide (Guernsey) Law of 1965 is,
1 (1) No person shall suffer death for murder and a person found guilty of murder shall, subject to the next succeeding subsection, be sentenced to imprisonment for life.
(2) Where a person found guilty of murder appears to the Royal Court to have been under the age of eighteen years at the time the offence was committed, such person shall not be sentenced to imprisonment for life under subsection (1) of this section but in lieu thereof the Royal Court shall sentence him to be detailed during Her Majesty’s pleasure.
Anyone who had already been handed a death penalty immediately had it committed to life imprisonment. According to a report in the Daily Mirror on 30 April 1964, five people had been sentenced to death in Guernsey over the previous three decades.
Guernsey technically retained hanging as an available punishment for other crimes until 2003.
What else happened in Guernsey in January?
Guernsey history newsletter
Check out The Sarnian’s email newsletter for Guernsey history, features, puzzles and pictures. It’s also the first place where you’ll find out about the Sarnian series of books, including sneak previews and discounts.
We will never sell your data to third parties, and there’s an unsubscribe link in every email, so you can leave whenever you like.
Explore Guernsey's history
Or click to view every entry organised by year, from 521 to the present day.
The Sarnian
A body on a beach, an impossible alibi and an unstoppable race against time!
Check out the first book in The Sarnian series, set on the Channel Island of Guernsey.
January in Guernsey through the years…
FREE Guernsey newsletter
Don't miss our weekly update on Guernsey's fascinating history. We promise never to sell your data to anyone else, and there's a super-easy unsubscribe link on the bottom of each email so you can leave whenever you want.
