Minister for Labour and Home Affairs Terry Lister has ruled out the possibility of introducing a curfew for youths under the age of 18 - and said parents needed to be more responsible instead.

He spoke out after United Bermuda Party candidate Mark Pettingill suggested a curfew be put in place to prevent teenagers from needlessly staying out on the streets until all hours of the morning.

Mr. Pettingill said he supported the idea of a curfew after 15-year-old Oshea Stowe was killed in an horrific road accident on Sunday just before 5 a.m.

The 23-year-old driver of the car was in a stable condition on a general ward in hospital, and two youths, aged 14 and 16, managed to escape from the crash unscathed.

But Mr. Pettingill, along with others, questioned why the three teenagers were out at that time, and suggested a curfew of 11 p.m. during the week, and 1a.m. at weekends, when there was good reason.

On Tuesday, Mr. Lister said a curfew would be very difficult to implement and even harder to enforce.

He said: “I am opposed to curfews because it's one of those features that ends up with the innocent suffering for the guilty. “I would place more emphasis on parents knowing where their children are and accepting that responsibility rather than enforcing and adding to the Policing of the street.”

Mr. Lister said it would be unfair to place restrictions on those people who were responsible, just to keep tabs on those that were not.

And he said introducing a curfew of 11 p.m. during the week could, for example, prevent a young couple from going on a date to a 9 p.m. showing at the cinema, which would be unfair.

But besides that, the Minister said a curfew would take a lot of policing and would rub people up the wrong way.

He said a number of check points would be needed across the Island in order for Police to stop young people and find out how old they were in order for the curfew to work.

And he said that would mean that a lot of people over the age of 18 would be needlessly stopped, too.

The Minister added: “It would not be easy. I support curfews in the cases of those offenders who have been before the courts.

“The courts have, in fact, been imposing curfews and Probation Services has the responsibility of following up on those cases. That's the right thing to do.

“Those that fall foul of the law should be treated in that manner to help them curb their own behaviour.”