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Thursday, August 28, 2025

Pupil's head flushed in toi­let bowl...

Cops seek instructions from DPP to lay charges

by

20120126

The prin­ci­pal of a pop­u­lar pri­vate pri­ma­ry school in Mar­aval is fac­ing pos­si­ble at­tempt­ed mur­der charges af­ter al­leged­ly flush­ing the head of a Stan­dard Three pupil, who is an Amer­i­can cit­i­zen, in a toi­let bowl. And Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in charge of Op­er­a­tions, Jack Ewats­ki, yes­ter­day promised a full and thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter. The in­ci­dent has al­so sparked con­cern among gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials who as­sured that the mat­ter would be han­dled trans­par­ent­ly. At yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing, Min­is­ter of Gen­der, Youth and Child De­vel­op­ment Ver­na St Rose- Greaves an­nounced that her min­istry had al­ready ini­ti­at­ed its own in­ves­ti­ga­tion. "I heard of the in­ci­dent and of­fi­cials from my min­istry are prob­ing the cir­cum­stances as to what ex­act­ly hap­pened," she said. "The mat­ter is of very se­ri­ous con­cern and I am go­ing to get to the bot­tom of what has hap­pened." Po­lice of­fi­cers who were in the process of com­pil­ing a file are ex­pect­ed to ap­proach the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard ear­ly next week for in­struc­tions.

The al­leged in­ci­dent has al­so sparked a high de­gree of out­rage among par­ents of chil­dren at­tend­ing the pri­vate in­sti­tu­tion, some of whom have charged that this was not the first time such an in­ci­dent has oc­curred. The pre­vi­ous in­ci­dents were cov­ered up by school of­fi­cials, the par­ents claimed. Some par­ents who say they pay al­most $4,000 school fee a term are con­tem­plat­ing re­mov­ing their chil­dren from the school. Po­lice sources said that af­ter be­ing in­ter­ro­gat­ed at length, the prin­ci­pal gave per­ti­nent in­for­ma­tion to in­ves­ti­ga­tors which they be­lieved could be very help­ful in bring­ing the probe to clo­sure and for charges to be laid. Po­lice de­scribed the in­ci­dent as very se­ri­ous, adding that the nine-year-old boy, who lived in a gat­ed Mar­aval com­mu­ni­ty, could have drowned while his head was sub­merged in the wa­ter of the toi­let bowl.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors al­so said they ex­pect­ed to re­ceive a full state­ment from an­oth­er pupil who wit­nessed the en­tire in­ci­dent.

They main­tained that the pur­port­ed act was not com­mit­ted by any teacher of the school, say­ing it was done sole­ly by the prin­ci­pal. It was al­so re­port­ed that af­ter his head was flushed in the toi­let bowl, the boy was or­dered to stand for three hours un­til class was dis­missed.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, the boy's out­raged fa­ther said he had im­me­di­ate­ly re­moved his son from the school and was in the process of en­rolling him at an­oth­er pri­vate in­sti­tu­tion. The fa­ther added that he had al­ready ini­ti­at­ed "full le­gal ac­tion" against the school's au­thor­i­ties. He al­so ex­pressed anger over a News­day re­port which iden­ti­fied the child, de­spite be­ing as­sured that the child's name would be with­held. "My son went to the bak­ery yes­ter­day morn­ing and im­me­di­ate­ly he was iden­ti­fied as the boy whose head was in a toi­let...all be­cause of that news­pa­per re­port," he said. "Why should my son go though that?...It's as if my son is re­liv­ing the in­ci­dent over and over again, be­cause his name was ex­posed and as a child he should have been pro­tect­ed. He should not be made to be re­peat­ed­ly hu­mil­i­at­ed," the fa­ther added.

Asked how the child was cop­ing yes­ter­day, the fa­ther said de­spite the trau­ma and the em­bar­rass­ment, he was "hold­ing up pret­ty well." "My son has been cop­ing and he is more alert...He is very adapt­able. "He's do­ing bet­ter than the day be­fore, giv­en the trau­ma he went through. "He was re­al­ly hurt when the in­ci­dent hap­pened, but he's hold­ing up as best as he can."

Main­tain­ing that he would leave no stone un­turned in pur­su­ing all le­gal av­enues to ob­tain jus­tice, the fa­ther said: "I owe it to my son to try." Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, an of­fi­cial at the school said the prin­ci­pal was not in of­fice and was un­sure when or what time would she would re­turn.

Min­is­ter: There will be con­se­quences

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Clifton de Coteau said yes­ter­day that once the pri­vate in­sti­tu­tion was fund­ed by the min­istry, the prin­ci­pal would have no choice but to face the nec­es­sary con­se­quences. "The sit­u­a­tion will def­i­nite­ly be un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry as it is a se­ri­ous mat­ter and I am sure that school su­per­vi­sors have al­ready be­gun do­ing their part," he said. "And if the school is fund­ed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, there would def­i­nite­ly be con­se­quences that the in­di­vid­ual would have to face, there is no doubt about that." He added, how­ev­er, that be­fore any form of dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion could be ini­ti­at­ed, a thor­ough probe must be car­ried out and com­plet­ed.

TTUTA: Jus­tice must be served

The in­ci­dent was al­so met with se­vere out­rage by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) who de­mand­ed that jus­tice in the swiftest and sever­est man­ner must be met­ed out. "If this is true, then TTUTA ab­hors what tran­spired, to say the very least, said the or­gan­i­sa­tion's pres­i­dent Rous­ton Job yes­ter­day. "I am to­tal­ly dum­found­ed by what has been re­port­ed and TTUTA con­demns the in­ci­dent out­right. How could such a thing hap­pen? It is sim­ply un­be­liev­able."

Job al­so said when such mat­ters oc­curred, it raised the ques­tion about dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dures im­ple­ment­ed in pri­vate pri­ma­ry schools. "These are schools where par­ents shell out a lot of mon­ey to en­sure their child is ed­u­cat­ed and well cared for." He said he was al­most cer­tain that the school in ques­tion was not a mem­ber of his or­gan­i­sa­tion, hence very lit­tle ac­tion could be ini­ti­at­ed by TUT­TA. Job al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the child's men­tal con­di­tion, say­ing the in­ci­dent could re­sult in psy­cho­log­i­cal scars. "The child would have not on­ly en­dured men­tal an­guish but al­so a high de­gree of em­bar­rass­ment," he said. "No child should un­der­go this. Jus­tice must take it course. There must be no cov­er-up."


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