The Australian 

BRITAIN: Last gasp for British capital punishment

 For the 1st time, no one in any British territory can be sentenced to death whatever crime they commit, whether it be murder, treason or mutiny.

 The Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean was the last British territory to have the death penalty -- for treason and piracy -- but has had it abolished by the Government using powers under the 1962 West Indies Act.

 It marks the end of a sustained campaign by British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Government to abolish the death penalty for all offences everywhere under British rule.

 The death penalty for murder in Britain was abolished in 1965, but it was not until 1998 that the Government abolished it for treason and piracy when it passed the Crime and Disorder Act.

 However, capital punishment was maintained in many overseas territories. In 1999, the Foreign Office published a White Paper pledging to abolish it everywhere.

 Bermuda got rid of capital punishment in December 1999, after an 8-hour debate in its assembly and a vote so narrow the chairman had to use his casting vote to decide the issue.

 The Government also abolished corporal punishment as a court sentence in the Turks and Caicos, although it remains legal in schools.

 The last people executed in Britain were murderers Peter Allen and Gwynne Owen Evans, who were hanged on August 13, 1964 for the murder of a milkman, a few months before the death penalty was abolished.

 Britain's so-called "Bloody Code" imposed the death penalty for 200 offences in the early 19th century, including "strong evidence of malice" in children, sacrilege, buggery and consorting with gypsies for more than a month.

 Gibbeting, where executed corpses were displayed publicly in cages, was abolished in 1843.

 In 1861, the number of capital crimes was reduced to just four: murder, treason, arson in royal dockyards and piracy with violence. Public executions were abolished in 1868.

 About 70 countries have abolished capital punishment for all crimes, with a further 23 countries having a defacto abolition, with no executions in the past 10 years.