A former Bermuda Police Commissioner who brought rival gang members together in sessions where they hugged believes dialogue is the best way to tackle youth violence.

Jean-Jacques LeMay, a former Mountie and recipient of the Queen's Police Medal, told The Royal Gazette that his attempts to engage with local gangs at the start of this decade fell apart when politicians insisted on getting involved.

But he insisted his approach of organising meetings with rival gang members, as well as high-profile operations involving numerous arrests, could have made a huge difference.

"We brought everybody together and actually were doing some good work until the politicians started to get involved," he said.

"They wanted to sit in on these meetings and suddenly of course the individuals who were participating in this dialogue then saw that this was turning into a political agenda and they refused to continue to participate. That was, very sadly, the outcome of that."

Mr. LeMay said seven rival gangs were operating on the Island during his time as Police Commissioner from 1998 to 2001 and that drugs played a big part.

"Some were known to basically work with each other, although they were separate," he said. "Some had been rival gangs for many, many years. The whole point was to have them start off by talking about their issues.

"We got rid of the tables and sat round in a large circle. People actually got up and they hugged each other."

Mr. LeMay would give gang members immunity for the night if they took part in the meetings — a policy which proved controversial.

And he said many locals failed to understand what the Police were trying to do and criticised him for speaking to people involved in drug trafficking. "There were a lot of negative comments," he said. "It was sad because I knew what I was doing but I knew it was a novel thing to do in Bermuda."

A series of raids he ordered in the summer of 2000 over a five-day period led to 145 arrests but he said the judiciary told him they could not keep up and did not like his idea of holding weekend and evening court sessions to get through all the defendants.

Government announced last week that it was considering creating a SWAT team among other measures to deal with the growing problem of youth violence, which saw a 22-year-old injured in a drive-by shooting on August 18.

Mr. LeMay, a Canadian who has worked for Nato and the United Nations and tackled gangs all over the world including in Haiti, said Bermuda needed to reach out to its disaffected youth.

"What you need to do is dialogue," he said.

"You have to reach out there and get people to sit down and get the support of the community.

"You need someone who is receptive to basically bringing all of these individuals in the same room.

"Because Bermuda is such a small place they need to give it time.

"It's not going to happen overnight. You are probably looking at several months before you build that trust.

"You move towards an end goal: free of violence on the streets."

The Family Centre's Martha Dismont also expresses concern at the idea of SWAT and shows of force, read article on page 8