RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Of­fi­cers of the TTPS Child Pro­tec­tion Unit (CPU) have al­most com­plet­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to re­ports that a Pe­nal school teacher touched a stu­dent on her breast dur­ing a Di­vali func­tion last month.

The Form Two stu­dent was in­ter­viewed by the CPU on Thurs­day.

Head of the TTPS Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment , act­ing Se­nior Supt Claire Guy-Al­leyne, yes­ter­day said the mat­ter is en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of the Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment and it’s al­most near com­ple­tion.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia about the al­leged, the moth­er of the stu­dent said of­fi­cers from the CPU vis­it­ed her home on Wednes­day night to sign off on her state­ments.

The CPU re­ceived a re­port on Oc­to­ber 11, the day the in­ci­dent al­leged­ly oc­curred.

A re­port was al­so made to the Siparia Po­lice on Oc­to­ber 18.

The moth­er said she was thank­ful that her daugh­ter’s sto­ry was re­port­ed ex­clu­sive­ly by Guardian Me­dia, not­ing that oth­er stu­dents and par­ents had come out in sup­port, of­fer­ing words of com­fort to the teenag­er.

Giv­ing an ac­count of what tran­spired, the moth­er said on Oc­to­ber 11, the girl was tak­ing up names for mod­el­ling when she saw the teacher stand­ing at a door­way. As the stu­dent passed, he al­leged­ly grabbed her right breast. The ter­ri­fied stu­dent ran out of the class­room and told an­oth­er teacher, who took her to the prin­ci­pal’s of­fice.

How­ev­er, rather than in­ves­ti­gate and re­port the mat­ter to the rel­e­vant chan­nels, the moth­er claimed the school of­fi­cials did noth­ing.

In the days lead­ing up to the as­sault, the moth­er said she no­ticed strange mes­sages com­ing from the teacher to her daugh­ter’s phone.

“He was say­ing hi. It was a week­end, so I felt tex­ting her was in­ap­pro­pri­ate. He kept say­ing he had some­thing to tell her. When she went to school on Mon­day, she ran away from him and he was ask­ing her why she ran away,” the moth­er re­called.

She said af­ter the in­ci­dent, she spoke to the teacher, who ad­mit­ted to touch­ing the stu­dent on her head but not her breast.

“This teacher has trau­ma­tised my daugh­ter. He should not be in school. She will live with this for the rest of her life,” she added.

Say­ing her daugh­ter has a promis­ing fu­ture ahead, the dis­traught moth­er showed off some of her tro­phies won in pri­ma­ry school for ju­do.

“She did mod­el­ling and danc­ing with the Wood­land Dance Acad­e­my as well as Hin­di class­es. She is a very tal­ent­ed child and she wants to be a lawyer in the fu­ture,” the moth­er said.

In­side the stu­dent’s bed­room, pos­i­tive mes­sages were scrawled. Some read: “You do not find the hap­py life, you make it,” and “Life is like rid­ing a bi­cy­cle, to keep bal­ance you must keep mov­ing.”

On Wednes­day, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by- Dol­ly told Guardian Me­dia that the re­port is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

“The in­for­ma­tion be­fore me dif­fers from what you have pre­sent­ed. These are very se­ri­ous and sen­si­tive mat­ters, and they are oc­cu­py­ing the at­ten­tion of the min­istry at this time,” she said.