That's the message from Deputy Governor Mr. John Kelly.

Mr. Kelly was speaking after a row between Britain and the Cayman Islands over the death penalty for murder.

In 1991, Britain banned such executions in its five Caribbean colonies -- Anguilla, Montserrat, the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

It wanted to bring them in line with its own policy of "life'' imprisonment.

There were complaints that the British Government had ignored majorities in favour of the death penalty and had not fully consulted the islands.

The penalty was not abolished in Bermuda, which has a different constitution.

The Cayman Islands recently asked Britain to reinstate capital punishment.

But last week the Caymans' governor, Mr. Michael Gore, said he had received a letter from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London, turning down the request.

Mr. Kelly re-affirmed Britain's policy towards Bermuda's death penalty for premeditated murder.

It was to "encourage'' the Island towards abolition, he said.

"The position is very much the same as it was in 1991.

"It was clear that the British Government could not itself amend the laws of Bermuda as easily has it could the laws of islands in the Caribbean.

"Since then there has been no-one convicted of a capital offence for which they might be sentenced to hang, so the issue has never resurrected itself.

"If someone were to be sentenced to hang, there would be a lot of pressure put on the British Government to deal with Bermuda's hanging law.'' Pressure would come from international campaigners like the human rights group Amnesty International, he said.

He hoped that in the "not too distant future'', there would be a private member's bill introduced in Parliament to abolish hanging -- like the Hon.

John Stubbs' proposal to make gay sex legal.

The last people to hang in Bermuda were Larry Tacklyn and Buck Burrows. Their executions in 1977 sparked large-scale riots.

In 1990, voters in the Island's first referendum voted to keep the death penalty. But only a third of the eligible voters went to the polls.