his life around after admitting in 1984 to robbing the Southampton Princess branch of the Bank of Butterfield. He is now employed and appears to have put a less than stellar past behind him and is the Progressive Labour Party candidate in the Paget East by-election.

However, the fact that he may be "reformed'' does not erase the serious crime which was once committed by him. As far as we can discover, he has said he is reformed but he has never said that he was wrong to commit an armed robbery during which a shot was fired.

While the PLP's willingness to forget Mr. Commissiong's past is noble, it does not mean that the past never happened. While neither the PLP nor Mr.

Commissiong have attempted to cover up or avoid talking about the robbery or prison sentence, neither have they gone out of their way to remind people of it.

Mr. Commissiong, in an interview with the Royal Gazette , said the issue had been touched on during the press conference at which his candidacy in Paget East was announced. As we understand it, the "touched on'' was only a vague reference to "a young man who like others has made his share of mistakes but has persevered and moved forward''. That was less than "up front'' with the public.

This newspaper has been under fire in the wake of the article in last Saturday's edition which disclosed that Mr. Commissiong was a convicted bank robber. Some of what is being said, of course, is pure politics. The PLP is singing the praises of Mr. Commissiong but we can well imagine what the PLP would have said if the UBP had proposed such a candidate. As recently as last year the PLP was strong in its attacks on former UBP stalwart Mr. Harry Viera who did not fire his gun or rob anyone. If the UBP were to choose to field a convicted felon as a candidate for elected office we would be just as obligated to report on that.

There are many Bermudians who are aware of Mr. Commissiong's past and who fully support his efforts to get elected to the House of Assembly. There are those, however, who without The Royal Gazette's article, would not have known.

To ignore that fact and our responsibility to our readers to ensure a fully informed electorate would have been reprehensible.

As far as reporting the record is concerned, people have a right to know who they are electing to a position of public trust and accountability. If voters choose to vote for a person who has been convicted after being fully informed of all the facts, then that is their choice.

It is right to admire the struggle people go through to reform their lives, criminals, addicts or anyone else, but we have to be careful not to suggest to young people that a sure way to success is to fall and recover. We should make it clear to young people that it is best not to fall at all, if only because many of those who fall do not recover or recover only temporarily.

The PLP has been very liberal and forgiving in granting someone with Mr.

Commissiong's past an opportunity to prove himself in the public arena. We could hope that the PLP might remember always to be so liberal. In recent months some members of the PLP have given the impression at least of being somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun. As an example, Mr. Nelson Bascome, the Shadow Minister of Health and Welfare, has been busy criticising remarks made by Health Minister the Hon. Quinton Edness. He is quoted as saying: "With regard to rehabilitation, one would have thought that Mr. Edness would have been professional in his approach, rather than political, concerning Mr.

Rolfe Commissiong.'' Yet Mr. Bascome, who earns his living counselling those in torment, pinned a white ribbon to his coat and stood front and centre among the right-wing zealots who sought to keep discrimination against gays the law of the land.

Clearly his was a political bow to the churches.

It is fair enough to say Mr. Commissiong has done his time. Ex-convicts should be encouraged at every step on their routes back into society. But there is another issue here. At a time when Bermuda is wrestling with an explosion of violent crime, our neighbours are deeply concerned about guns, and we are trying to keep guns out of Bermuda. To put up for election to the House of Assembly a man who decided to walk into a bank with a gun and demand money, may be most unwise. He was not a child at the time, nor a misguided youth. He was 26 years old.

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