AKASH SAMA­ROO

A 17-year-old girl cur­rent­ly is in po­lice cus­tody fol­low­ing a fire at a Child Sup­port Cen­tre (CSC) in Tacarigua, which led to the par­tial dam­age of the prop­er­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, which has the sole re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the fa­cil­i­ty, none of the chil­dren were in­jured and all were re­lo­cat­ed to an­oth­er fa­cil­i­ty.

Po­lice re­ports state that around 1:52 am, of­fi­cers were alert­ed to the blaze along Crown Street. The po­lice say fire of­fi­cers re­spond­ed and all 18 fe­male res­i­dents were ac­count­ed for and trans­ferred to the St Do­minic's Home.

How­ev­er, an in­for­mant told po­lice that at around 1:30 am, he ob­served the 17-year-old sus­pect who re­port­ed­ly was be­hav­ing in an er­rat­ic man­ner, al­leged­ly de­stroy­ing items at the front of­fice. The po­lice say the girl re­port­ed­ly pulled some ex­posed elec­tri­cal wiring which then sparked and start­ed the fire.

The prop­er­ty is owned by Trinidad and To­ba­go and West In­dies crick­eter Lendl Sim­mons who rents it to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty.  

Sim­mons told Guardian Me­dia he is yet to as­cer­tain the ex­tent of dam­age to the prop­er­ty, but he did con­firm the Au­thor­i­ty is four years in­to a five-year lease arrange­ment.