By SEAN DOUGLAS Monday, December 14 2009

PRINCES TOWN North MP Subhas Panday provoked a collective gasp from the Government benches when he suggested any child born out of wedlock should be “red-flagged at birth” as a way to curb crime.

He was speaking on Friday in the Lower House on a Government motion to tighten the Prison Rules to curb the smuggling of cellphones.

Panday said that from the moment you see “informant” written on a birth certificate instead of the name of a father, that child should be red-flagged. That is a child who needs special care, he explained, above the shocked moans of Government MPs. Panday claimed that 90 percent of prisoners were from single-parent homes.

He called for a wholesale updating of all the prison rules which he described as “Queen Victoria legislation”.

“We should be ashamed of ourselves,” he said, lamenting that the motion would merely tinker with the regulations of Queen Victoria. Panday called for the establishment of a Prison Complaints Authority, suggesting that convicts’ frustration at ill-treatment may be causing them to retaliate, via messages sent out on illicit cell-phones. He also complained that the Police Complaints Authority has no director nor deputy director, and asked the Government to say why.