An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Fr An­tho­ny de Ver­teuil, a for­mer prin­ci­pal at St Mary’s Col­lege in Port-of-Spain, has bro­ken his si­lence on a bul­ly­ing in­ci­dent in­volv­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and an­oth­er stu­dent, Im­ran Khan, that oc­curred some 33 years ago.

Young has been ac­cused by the rel­a­tives of one of his for­mer school­mates of be­ing a bul­ly, which led to the school­boy at­tack­ing him with a ba­ton in re­tal­i­a­tion.

Dur­ing his homi­ly at Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty Chapel Lenten Mass yes­ter­day, Fr de Ver­teuil told the con­gre­ga­tion how he dealt with the mat­ter and al­so ques­tioned the tim­ing of res­ur­rect­ing the in­ci­dent.

“Joy of for­giv­ing. One boy clubbed an­oth­er one on the head. Af­ter in­ves­ti­gat­ing, I can say that in the in­ter­est of jus­tice and com­pas­sion, I did not sus­pend him. I did not ex­pel him. I did not stop him from do­ing his ex­ams. I did not pun­ish him in any way," he said.

“I placed no record of the in­ci­dent on the files. I was hap­py to ac­knowl­edge him as a St Mary’s Col­lege boy in good stand­ing. The joy of be­ing oblig­ed, I can even say to for­give,” the priest said. How­ev­er, Fr de Ver­teuil said years lat­er, in the in­ter­est of pol­i­tics, the in­ci­dent has resur­faced.

“Once more, I have the hap­pi­ness of for­give­ness. It’s in this fal­si­fied ver­sion of events that those who lied, those who slan­dered, those who ca­lum­ni­at­ed, those who led in­to er­ror, and per­sons who were ea­ger to see evil, I for­give you all,” he point­ed out in his homi­ly.

The in­ci­dent was high­light­ed in a so­cial me­dia post just hours af­ter Young’s in­au­gu­ra­tion as Prime Min­is­ter on March 17. The post quick­ly went vi­ral, spark­ing a wide­spread na­tion­al de­bate on the is­sue.

The Prime Min­is­ter has since is­sued an apol­o­gy to all vic­tims of bul­ly­ing. Young said at this stage in his life he has no is­sue say­ing sor­ry to vic­tims, nor will he triv­i­alise any­one’s feel­ings. Re­in­forc­ing his com­mit­ment to use his of­fice to ad­dress the is­sue, he said it serves no one well to re­vis­it the is­sue decades lat­er, nor can he change the past.

“I am sor­ry for any child who has had to en­dure bul­ly­ing, which, as we now know, is an is­sue. Con­cern­ing that is­sue, I’ve al­ready ad­dressed it. I am not go­ing to do any­thing to af­fect per­sons’ rec­ol­lec­tion of the in­ci­dent or to wa­ter down, for want of a bet­ter word, their feel­ings, how they feel, be­cause it was a trau­mat­ic in­ci­dent, not on­ly for Mr Khan but for me and for many oth­er peo­ple, as we’re see­ing com­ing out of it.

“So I stand here with­out fear, and I am apol­o­gis­ing to every sin­gle child who has had to en­dure bul­ly­ing. How do we ad­dress it now, and how do we move for­ward as a so­ci­ety, par­tic­u­lar­ly in our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem? That’s where my fo­cus is go­ing to be,” Young added.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Young yes­ter­day about Fr de Ver­teuil’s com­ment, but he did not re­spond.