Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Ar­son ac­cused Franklyn Poorai has been banned from re­turn­ing to his Williamsville home even though he was grant­ed $175,000 bail. The 52 year-old San?Fer­nan­do?City Cor­po­ra­tion labour­er is ac­cused of set­ting his Kel­ly Junc­tion, Williamsville home on fire last month while two of his rel­a­tives were in­side. On Thurs­day, act­ing Deputy Chief Mag­is­trate Ra­jen­dra Ram­bachan im­posed the ban on Poorai as a con­di­tion of his bail. He will now have to re­side at his niece's Bayshore, Mara­bel­la home.

Poorai's at­tor­ney Ravi Gool­jar as­sured Ram­bachan that his client will live at his niece's house. "When he gets bail, po­lice are to ver­i­fy that he is liv­ing there (Mara­bel­la.) If he is not please no­ti­fy me," Ram­bachan or­dered. Poorai is charged with ma­li­cious­ly set­ting fire to a house at Kel­ly Junc­tion, White­land, Williamsville, on Au­gust 28 when it al­leged Nico­las Grant and Crys­tal Gra­cia were in the house.

Ram­bachan, in grant­i­ng bail, gave strict in­struc­tions to Poorai that he is not to be "at or in the prox­im­i­ty of the house which is the sub­ject mat­ter of this al­le­ga­tion." Po­lice Pros­e­cu­tor Ram­dath?Phillip said no fin­ger­print trac­ing was avail­able for Poorai as the crim­i­nal records trace sys­tem was not work­ing. He said Poorai had a pre­vi­ous con­vic­tion for lar­ce­ny.

Phillip al­so said Grant and Gra­cia re­side in the same Williamsville house as Poorai and that pos­es a safe­ty con­cern. "There is no way I am grant­i­ng bail and send­ing him back to the same house he al­leged­ly set on fire with peo­ple in­side. I do not even want him in the area," Ram­bachan added. The mag­is­trate asked Gool­jar if Poorai had al­ter­na­tive hous­ing arrange­ments that were out­side of Williamsville.

Gool­jar said Poorai's niece would ac­com­mo­date the man in her home which she shares with her two chil­dren. Ram­bachan asked the woman if she was will­ing to take her un­cle in­to her home and she said, "Yes." He grant­ed bail and or­dered Poorai to re­port to the Mara­bel­la po­lice every Fri­day, Sat­ur­day and Sun­day be­fore 9 pm. He al­so warned Poorai not to con­tact or com­mu­ni­cate with Grant and Gar­cia. Poorai will reap­pear in court on Oc­to­ber 11.