Hooligans who disrupt sporting events - like last year's Friendship Trophy final at Wellington Oval - will face much harsher fines and prison time after the House of Assembly last night passed amendments to the Criminal Code.

The legislation, which passed unanimously, hikes fines and prison sentences for a range of violent crimes and gives Police broader powers to arrest people they suspect have committed violent crimes.

Police also received additional help when Public Safety Minister Randy Horton accepted an Opposition United Bermuda Party amendment further increasing the penalties for assaulting Police officers.

During debate, Mr. Horton said the changes showed the governing Progressive Labour Party was tough on crime.

But Shadow Public Safety Minister Maxwell Burgess said the amendments had come too late and did not go far enough.

The bill, which will now go the Senate, also designate areas such as schools or public sporting grounds as increased penalty zones for acts of violence.

Mr. Horton made it clear that the Wellington Oval clash last spring had sparked the amendments.

“I was absolutely shocked to see the manner in which people in our country were behaving towards each other,” Mr. Horton - who was in attendance at that event - said. “It is increasingly evident ... that certain anti-social and lawlessness elements in our society have targeted public events ... as preferred locations for their rivalries.

“Too often the violence is gang-related”, he said, despite the official Police stance that gangs do not exist on the Island.

But Mr. Burgess, however, said increasing sentences by two years across the board meant lesser crimes were more severely punished.

If an offence previously called for two years incarceration, that period would be increased to four years - a 100 percent increase, he said. If the penalty was originally five years, however, it was only increased to seven years - roughly a forty percent increase.

“The more serious of a crime you commit, the less of a signal you are sent,” he said.

He also called for increases in fines so they would be high enough to, for example, pay for the counselling of a victim after an attack, he said.

“It's called old-fashioned restorative justice ... Victims shouldn't have to be going to the Criminal Compensation Board, we should be going to them.”

Government backbencher and former top Police officer Wayne Perinchief disagreed with the penalty zones, saying they would be challenged by defence lawyers who would argue their client was slightly outside them as they plea bargained.

He said penalties should be increased across the board after saying crimes occurred at other places such as Ice Queen, the scene of the notorious murder of Tekle Mallory.

Mr. Horton accepted an amendment from Mr. Burgess raising the penalty for assaulting a Police officer up to four years in prison or a $5,000 fine.