allegations at Nambour Day Nursery, the Police Commissioner said yesterday.

"The Attorney General has advised me that having reviewed the comprehensive report by Police into activities at Nambour, that the evidence does not at this point disclose a case for prosecution,'' Mr. Lennett (Lennie) Edwards told The Royal Gazette .

Police remained in contact with the concerned families and would watch over the next several months for signs of increased trauma, Mr. Edwards said. "If any fresh evidence should surface, we'd only be too willing to deal with it.'' Ms Sheelagh Cooper, co-chairman of Bermuda's Coalition for the Protection of Children, renewed her call for a wide-ranging Commission of Inquiry into both the case and protection of children on the Island.

"I'm not surprised that no charges are going to be laid,'' Ms Cooper said.

"It's been clear from the beginning that the courts are unwilling to entertain the idea of such young children testifying in Bermuda, although courts in both Canada and the United States have children testifying as young as three or four years old.'' All the facts needed to be known, she said. "It is not enough to have such a large number of children traumatised and say we just don't know by whom or how. I'm not willing to accept that.'' Health and Social Services Minister the Hon. Quinton Edness has said some children who attended Nambour in Paget were traumatised, but how that happened was a mystery.

The Health Ministry also probed Nambour and offered counselling for more than a dozen children removed from the day nursery.

The owners of the nursery maintained the allegations were unfounded. They cited the adverse publicity in choosing to sell Nambour. It is reopening under new owners and a new name.

Police first looked into the day nursery more than eight months ago. They soon completed their initial investigation, but "about four months ago we were brought back into it,'' Mr. Edwards said.

Eventually, a large file resulting from the investigation headed by W.Sgt.

Roseanda Jones was sent to Attorney General Mr. Walter Maddocks.

Mr. Maddocks sent his recommendations to the Police Commissioner last Friday.

Yesterday, the Attorney General said the young age of the children who attended the day nursery "would be a factor in deciding whether or not to prosecute in cases such as this''.

Legal sources said the court would first have to decide whether the children were old enough to understand what it meant to swear an oath. "Preschool children will almost certainly not be sworn,'' a source said.

Children could still testify, provided the court decided they knew what it meant to give evidence and the importance of telling the truth. But since the evidence would not be sworn, it would have to be corroborated "by some other material evidence which could implicate the accused''.

Testimony from experts who examined the child would not constitute corroboration, the source said. The expert could only testify based on observations of the child, and the child would effectively be corroborating herself, he said.

The Criminal Code (Sexual Offences) Amendment Act 1992 removed the requirement for corroborating evidence in sexual assault cases. But the requirement for corroboration of children's testimonies was unchanged.