Derek Achong

Prin­ci­pal and pro­pri­etor of Mar­aval-based Black­man Pri­vate School Ar­lene Black­man yes­ter­day ap­peared be­fore a Port-of-Spain mag­is­trate ac­cused of as­sault­ing two of her pupils. Black­man, 68, was not called up­on to plead to the two charges, which were laid un­der Sec­tion 3(1) of the Chil­dren's Act, when she ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Chris­tine Charles in the Fifth Court. The charges arose out of an al­leged in­ci­dent at the school on Sad­dle Road, Mar­aval, on Jan­u­ary 24.

Two pupils, ages nine and ten, claimed they were tak­en to the school's toi­let and had their heads flushed. The in­ci­dent was lat­er re­port­ed by the boys' par­ents to of­fi­cers of the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion. The charge stat­ed that as a per­son in care and in charge of the boys, Black­man wil­ful­ly as­sault­ed them and ex­posed them to un­nec­es­sary suf­fer­ing to their health. Un­der the leg­is­la­tion, a per­son found guilty of the of­fence faces a fine of up to $10,000, or in de­fault, up to two years' im­pris­on­ment.

Af­ter the mat­ter was called in court, Charles re­quest­ed that me­dia per­son­nel who were present in the court­room re­frain from pub­lish­ing the names of the al­leged vic­tims, as was done since the in­ci­dent was first pub­lished. In­ves­ti­ga­tors of the Port-of-Spain CID, led by ASP Ajith Per­sad, re­ceived in­struc­tions from Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard late on Thurs­day evening, at the end of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the in­ci­dent. Af­ter be­ing charged around 8 pm on Thurs­day, Black­man was grant­ed $150,000 bail to cov­er both charges by a Jus­tice of the Peace who vis­it­ed the Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion on St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, where she was be­ing de­tained. Dur­ing yes­ter­day's hear­ing, Black­man's bail was reg­u­larised by Charles. The charges were laid by Cpl Ren­nie Grant and WPC Fer­ette, both as­signed to the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion. The vic­tims of the al­leged at­tack and their par­ents were not seen in the court­room dur­ing yes­ter­day's hear­ing. Black­man was rep­re­sent­ed by Se­nior Coun­sel Pamela El­der and at­tor­ney Richard Ma­son, while po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Sgt An­der­son Gon­za­les ap­peared for the State. Black­man is ex­pect­ed to reap­pear in court on Feb­ru­ary 16.