Progressive Labour Party (PLP) and deputy former police commissioner Wayne Perinchief accused the United Bermuda Party of "presupposing corruption" in the Island's security services with a campaign pledge to create an independent internal affairs department to investigate charges of serious misconduct.

The proposed department, according to Opposition candidate Patricia Gordon-Pamplin, would be a larger version of the Police's current internal investigations department with a staff of Police officers and civilians who would be charged with investigating "allegations of corruption of criminal misdeeds by Police, customs or prison officers".

She said: "It wouldn't just be investigating improprieties. We are going to make the function of this one a bit bigger and its terms of reference will be more specific to covering misconduct for more serious charges. We need to ensure the Police service is held to a high standard of account in the public eye.

"We're not saying that beat patrols will suffer as a result of creating an internal affairs department. It is one of our priorities to put more officers out on the streets and, if necessary, we'll bring them in from overseas."

But Mr. Perinchief said the UBP was showing Bermuda that it did not have confidence in Bermudians by pledging to bring in more overseas officers.

And, on the proposed internal affairs department, he said: "It would increase bureaucracy and create mistrust between the officers and the lower ranks. If they are talking about a big brother system where they will show no confidence in the people who they have placed high security clearance positions then it seems they are undermining themselves. If Government is not going to trust its own organisations, then who will?"

He said the creation of such an independent department would lead to more time being wasted through full-scale investigations into complaints of which, in his experience, "around 50 percent would either be dropped or a satisfactory resolution would come about".

"If they were talking about creating an ombudsman to oversee the overall picture then I would support it. If they are talking about heavy corruption in the Police force then we never really came across that. It seems that the UBP are presupposing that with this idea. It seems like they haven't done their research and it's just politicking."