Bermuda's courts must get tougher on violent criminals, the Court of Appeal said yesterday.

Court president, the Hon. Sir Denys Roberts, said courts must pay attention to the public's desire for protection against violent criminals.

"There is evidence that Bermuda is suffering from a degree of fear of violence, that this fear has increased in the community and that the courts are expected to act accordingly,'' Sir Denys said.

His comments were part of an eight-page judgment on a case that amounted to a stinging rebuke of a decision by the Chief Justice.

In May, the Hon. Mr. Justice Ward suspended a two-year prison sentence he'd imposed on a teenager convicted of stabbing and badly wounding another man.

Sir Denys described the Chief Justice's sentence against Shawn Derrick Gibson as manifestly inadequate.

He rejected it and ordered the immediate jailing of Shawn Derrick Gibson for three years -- a sentence he said should serve as "punishment and as a deterrent to him and to others''.

Such was the Court of Appeal's concern about the case -- and its message to the community -- that Sir Denys recommended Bermuda increase the maximum penalty for grievous bodily harm to life imprisonment.

"We do not consider the maximum sentence of ten years adequate...'' he said.

"In many other countries, the maximum sentence for causing grievous bodily harm is life imprisonment, as we suggest that it should be in Bermuda.'' Sir Denys also said the courts should impose immediate prison sentences in any serious case involving bodily harm.

He said former Chief Justice Sir James Astwood had it right in holding to that position.

"Violence can, save in exceptional cases, only be met with a substantial sentence of immediate imprisonment,'' Sir Denys said.

Get tough Mr. Ward's suspension of the two-year sentence against the 19-year-old Gibson was "hardly a deterrent to others''.

The court further underlined its concern saying the comparative youth of Gibson should not have been a weighty factor in Mr. Ward's sentencing "since, unhappily, a high proportion of crimes of violence are committed by youthful defendants''.

Gibson stabbed Mark McRonald in Par-la-Ville Park on June 6, 1993. McRonald suffered two gashes in his left arm and a two and a half-inch puncture in his abdomen.

The operating surgeon reported that McRonald's wound was nearly fatal. During the operation on McRonald's punctured liver, three of his body's five litres of blood had to be suctioned from his belly cavity.

Sir Denys called the attack on McRonald inexcusable. Mr. Ward accepted that the attack was of a "one-off nature''.

Sir Denys said Gibson's excuse of heavy drinking and losing his temper because McRonald had spoken to his girlfriend was "no defence in law''.

He noted that Gibson had to open his lock knife to use it.

"There must therefore have been a conscious act by the defendant of the opening of the knife before blows were struck with it by him,'' he said Sir Denys' judgment also corrected the Chief Justice's approach to sentencing. He said a trial judge should first look at the proper sentence to be imposed for the offence before deciding on possible suspension.

"It does not appear the Chief Justice adopted this approach, since he seems not to have decided what the proper sentence was, before he decided whether or not to suspend it.''