An afternoon of high tension in the House of Assembly ended with Marc Bean, the Leader of the Opposition, being escorted out of the Chamber by the sergeant-at-arms and a police officer.

Mr Bean was suspended from the House until next week after a motion of censure, which was brought by One Bermuda Alliance MP Mark Pettingill, was carried by a majority of MPs.

The motion called for Mr Bean’s suspension because of his actions on March 16, when he is said to have “verbally threatened” government MPs, saying “I’m going to take you out.”

Outside the Chamber, a defiant Mr Bean addressed the media and supporters, and brought into question the future of Randy Horton, the Speaker of the House.

“We will be bringing a censure motion to explain the Speaker’s position is no longer tenable,” he said. “I could not defend myself against this bogus motion,” he said.

The Opposition leader accused Mr Horton of being complicit in the action taken against him by government MPs. “Next week will be the last week that Randy Horton will be a Member of Parliament in this House,” he said.

All 19 OBA MPs voted in favour of the motion to censure Mr Bean, while the 16 Progressive Labour Party MPs abstained from the vote.

Earlier, Mr Bean had defended his comments in March, saying they were meant in a political context.

During his allotted 30 minutes, he made a series of claims about aspects of the Hamilton Waterfront development deal and how certain government ministers would be facing 15 years in prison for taking bribes.

He also referred to a series of prepaid phone numbers that he said were connected to ministers, an offshore bank account and the active nature of the investigation into “Jetgate”.

He said: “It does not matter what you all vote, the people of Constituency 26 put me up here. No one in this country will remove me from my constitutional duty. How’s that?”.

Mr Horton repeatedly interrupted the Leader of the Opposition during his speech saying that parliamentary rules prevented him “impugning” other MPs during a motion to censure him.

The increasingly heated exchange ended with Mr Bean saying that he would be taking the phone numbers to the financial crime unit of the Bermuda Police Service, and with Mr Horton saying “your time is up”.

The debate itself, which had included contributions from Mr Pettingill, Patricia Gordon-Pamplin, Walton Brown and Sylvan Richards, appeared to end in confusion, with PLP MPs insisting that the House could not suspend a Member of Parliament; it could be done only by the Speaker personally.

However, Mr Horton maintained that a majority of MPs did have that power to suspend a member, before MPs proceeded to vote by name.

In reference to PLP MPs’ decision to abstain, a party spokesman said: “The PLP felt that to participate in the vote would legitimize what we believe to be a flawed motion and flawed procedure.

“Therefore, as a caucus we decided to abstain in support of due process for our leader.”