The Commissioner of Police said he was trying to develop a speak up culture where officers were held to a “robust” set of standards.

Darrin Simons highlighted the importance of employees challenging any improper conduct by their colleagues but added that the approach was not simply for people to land others in trouble.

He said the Bermuda Police Service had “very clear and I’m going to say robust standards of professional behaviour”.

Mr Simons highlighted the organisation’s code of ethics, which included guidance on honesty and integrity as well as discreditable conduct.

“We have a professional standards department that is responsible for investigating those complaints or issues where there has been breach of the standards on behalf of the organisation.”

He referenced the guidance on “challenging and reporting improper conduct”, which said: “Police officers report, challenge or take action against the conduct of colleagues which has fallen below the Standards of Professional Behaviour.”

Mr Simons explained: “One of the things that we’re really working towards is establishing what I call a ‘speak-up’ culture, where, not that as the first instance people are trying to get other people in trouble, but just requiring officers or having conversations about, these are the standards, this is what’s supposed to be done, this is how you’re supposed to do it.

“In circumstances where there is improper conduct officers are doing the right thing and they’re reporting it.”

He added: “We also have the Police Complaints Authority where members of the public can make complaints and they’re there to provide some independence around the process.

“When you just really look at the numbers, first of all, the types of complaints and the numbers of complaints, I really do think that we do quite well.

“We might get on average about 20 public complaints a year.”

Mr Simons pointed out that the BPS had about 500 people, including civilian staff, in its organisation.

He added: “We have systems in place that hold officers accountable and work towards instilling public confidence.”

“The overwhelming vast majority of complaints are what we call incivility, where officers maybe didn’t say good morning, maybe they didn’t approach the person correctly ‘the officer was rude to me’ – that kind of incivility matters are the overwhelming vast majority of our complaints.

“I don’t want to make light of that but in terms of the scale of seriousness, they’re on the lower end.”

He assured residents: “We are here and we will listen and we desperately want people to share information with us."

Mr Simons insisted last week that the police service had systems to protect the identity of people who provided intelligence.

He was speaking after the BPS became aware of a number of social media posts that accused “individuals of providing information which may have led to criminals being incarcerated”.

The police commissioner told The Royal Gazette later: “Recently with some of the social postings, I can appreciate some of the concern that people might have, but I just want to reassure people that certainly from the policing perspective, their information is treated confidentially.

“It’s also about doing the right thing, it’s about what kind of society you want to live in as a person and what role can you play.

“Every crime requires a member of the community, a member of the public to come forward and say what they saw, there are … so few crimes that can possibly be solved just by forensics and CCTV cameras et cetera alone, it requires people to come forward and say, this is what I saw.

“Sometimes that’s directly related to the crime and sometimes it’s circumstantial evidence along the path but we need the help of the community to solve the crimes.

“I firmly believe that there’s no crime that the community can’t solve.”

Asked if he believed residents had confidence in the BPS, Mr Simons said: “I think so.

“When we ask them, particularly one of the things that they talk about is that we treat people fairly and I think that goes a long way to establishing confidence in a public authority.

“I think that’s one of the things that we do particularly well, we treat people fairly, we treat their information confidentially and I think we have a pretty good track record around solving crimes.”