Opposition MP Maxwell Burgess yesterday called on Government to deliver legislative proposals to deal firmly with violent crime in the community, and threatened to bring a bill proposing the reinstitution of capital punishment if nothing was done.

In an impassioned speech during the House of Assembly motion to adjourn Mr. Burgess referred to last week's high speed chase across the Island and said it was past time that the Government declared it had had enough of violent crime and do something about it.

"It's unacceptable to tell me that we are unable to come to grips with violent crime," he said.

"It's unacceptable that women can no longer feel safe."

He referred to the last week's incident in which a man led Police on a high speed chase after allegedly assaulting five women, but was warned by the Speaker that the matter was before the courts.

"The question of whether my mother is safe, the question of whether my wife, my daughter or my sister is safe is not before the court. But it should be before the Government," he said.

Mr. Burgess, the Shadow Public Safety Minister, said that Bermuda should learn from the Jamaican experience where he said successive Governments had done nothing in the face of growing violence.

"It's a slow dripping away. It's just a slow accepting and lowering of standards. A slow response of that Government and successive Governments of that country to deal with violent crime."

He added: "When we sit down and allow one machete to be used and it's just one more crime, when we allow one baseball bat to be used and it's just one more, when we allow one more woman to be attacked and it's just one more... It's that kind of lowering of the guard that will see this country's social and financial stability go to ruin."

He suggested that Government inaction could be because no one in the legislature had yet been affected by violence against their womenfolk.

"Maybe it will be one of us and that's when we will say enough is enough. God forbid if we continue to allow this kind of behaviour to become second nature (where) you're almost not dressed if you go to a soccer game without carrying a baseball bat."

He added: "I am prepared to go it alone to bring an amendment to reinstate capital punishment."

Referring to the just concluded lengthy debate on gaming machines, he said "our priorities are not in protecting our women. Our priorities are in the fickleness of other things and the will isn't there."

And he warned that if zero tolerance legislation is not brought, it won't be long before people take the law into their own hands in order to protect themselves or their loved ones.