Murder of Sir Richard Sharples, Government House, Hamilton, Bermuda, 10th March 1973

Sir Richard Sharples

• Name - Sir Richard Sharples
• Occupation - Governor of Bermuda
• Assassins -  Erskine Durrant "Buck" Burrows  &  Larry Tacklyn
• Assassination Method -  Shot with revolvers
• Place of Death - Government House, Hamilton, Bermuda

Sir Richard Christopher Sharples KCMG OBE MC (6 August 1916 – 10 March 1973) was a British politician and Governor of Bermuda who was shot dead by assassins linked to a small militant Bermudian Black Power group called the Black Beret Cadre. The former army major, who had been a Cabinet Minister, resigned his seat to take up the position of Governor of Bermuda in late 1972. His murder would result in the last executions to be conducted under British rule anywhere in the world.

Assassination

Sharples was killed outside Bermuda's Government House on the evening of 10 March 1973. An informal dinner party for a small group of guests had just concluded, when he decided to go for a walk with his Great Dane, Horsa, and his aide-de-camp, Captain Hugh Sayers of the Welsh Guards. The two men and dog were ambushed and gunned down outside the Governor's residence.

The Governor's coffin was borne by officers of the Bermuda Regiment, and his aide Sayer's by a party from the Welsh Guards. The coffins were carried atop 25 Pounder field guns of the Bermuda Regiment, to the Leander class frigate HMS Sirius, which was stationed at HM Dockyard Bermuda at the time. The ship's Royal Marines detachment provided an honour guard on the flight deck. HMS Sirius conveyed the bodies from Hamilton to St. George's, where they were interred at St. Pater's Church. After the assassination HMS Sirius provided enhanced security for Senior Naval Officer West Indies (SNOWI) who was stationed on the island. The airborne company was subsequently posted to the Dockyard to guard SNOWI.

Sharples was buried in the graveyard at St Peter's Church in St George's on 16 March 1973, six days after his assassination, with Captain Sayers and Great dane, Horsa.

Elements of the British Army's airborne forces, which were training at Warwick Camp with the Bermuda Regiment at the time of the murders, were called in to assist the civil authorities. The 23 Parachute Field Ambulance, 1 Parachute Logistic Regiment and the band of the 1st Battalion, The Parachute Regiment subsequently provided protection for Government buildings, officials and dignitaries as well as assisting the Bermuda Police.

Police launched a massive manhunt and investigation. Eventually, in 1976, a petty criminal named Erskine Durrant "Buck" Burrows was arrested. He confessed to shooting dead Sharples and Sayers. At his trial he was also convicted of murdering the Bermuda Police commissioner George Duckett on 9 September 1972 and killing the co-owner and the bookkeeper of a supermarket in April 1973.

In his confession Burrows wrote:

The motive for killing the Governor was to seek to make the people, black people in particular, become aware of the evilness and wickedness of the colonialist system in this island. Secondly, the motive was to show that these colonialists were just ordinary people like ourselves who eat, sleep and die just like anybody else and that we need not stand in fear and awe of them.

A co-accused named Larry Tacklyn was acquitted of assassinating Sharples and Sayers but was convicted of killing Victor Rego and Mark Doe at the Shopping Centre supermarket in April 1973. Unlike Burrows, who did not care whether he was to be executed, Tacklyn expected to get a "last minute" reprieve.

Both murderers remained in Casemates Prison while the appeals process for Tacklyn was brought before the House of Lords in London. During this time, it was reported that Tacklyn passed the time playing table tennis, while Burrows took a virtual vow of silence, only communicating his thoughts and requests on scraps of paper.

Both men were hanged on 2 December 1977 at Casemates Prison. A moratorium on hanging was then in effect, and, although others had been sentenced to death in the intervening years, no one had been executed in Bermuda since the Second World War. Burrows and Tacklyn would be the last people to be executed under British rule anywhere in the world.

Three days of rioting followed the executions. During the riots, the Bermuda Regiment proved too small to fulfill its role (which was considered by Major General Glyn Gilbert, the highest ranking Bermudian in the British Army, in his review of the regiment, leading to its increase from 400 soldiers to a full battalion of 750). As a consequence, at the request of the Bermuda Government, soldiers of the 1st Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers were flown in as re-inforcements in the aftermath of the riots. The cost of the damages was estimated to be $2 million.

Also Killed With Sharples

Captain Hugh Ralph Lorne Sayers (1946-1973)