RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Calls are be­ing made for the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit (CPU) to in­ves­ti­gate the con­duct of a 15-year-old Princes Town East Sec­ondary School stu­dent, af­ter she al­leged­ly at­tacked an­oth­er stu­dent on Fri­day, leav­ing the child hos­pi­talised with in­juries re­quir­ing stitch­es.

The in­ci­dent has sparked out­rage among par­ents, with al­le­ga­tions that the teenag­er had pre­vi­ous­ly been re­port­ed for bul­ly­ing and threat­en­ing oth­er stu­dents.

The in­jured stu­dent’s grand­moth­er, Al­li­son Corinne Ham­let, took to so­cial me­dia in a se­ries of posts, call­ing on the au­thor­i­ties to in­ter­vene be­fore an­oth­er child is se­ri­ous­ly in­jured.

Ham­let said her grand­daugh­ter was as­sault­ed on Fri­day and re­ceived stitch­es to her ear af­ter 1 am. She al­so re­port­ed that the child had sus­tained a bro­ken tooth and bruis­es to her body.

She al­leged that the 15-year-old had been the sub­ject of sev­er­al po­lice re­ports in­volv­ing oth­er chil­dren, but ques­tioned why the mat­ter had not been ad­e­quate­ly ad­dressed.

In one video, Ham­let said an­oth­er moth­er had con­tact­ed her, al­leg­ing that her daugh­ter, who al­so at­tends Princes Town East Sec­ondary, had been threat­ened by the same stu­dent.

Ac­cord­ing to Ham­let, the moth­er al­leged that the bul­ly had gone to her home with a bot­tle of acid, threat­en­ing to pour it on her daugh­ter. She said the moth­er had pro­vid­ed pho­tographs of the bot­tle and a copy of a po­lice re­port.

Ham­let fur­ther al­leged that the stu­dent had con­tin­ued threat­en­ing the girl, telling her she would be stabbed wher­ev­er she was seen.

The grand­moth­er said she was dis­sat­is­fied with the re­sponse to the pre­vi­ous com­plaints and called for ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion by the CPU.

The al­le­ga­tions have al­so raised con­cerns about re­ports that stu­dents are be­ing threat­ened with vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing stab­bing and at­tacks with muri­at­ic acid, if they re­port in­ci­dents to the po­lice.

She warned that the sit­u­a­tion could es­ca­late if the au­thor­i­ties failed to act.

The al­le­ga­tions have prompt­ed re­newed calls for stronger mea­sures to pro­tect stu­dents, par­tic­u­lar­ly as po­lice are al­so prob­ing re­ports that stu­dents have been threat­ened with be­ing stabbed or hav­ing muri­at­ic acid poured on them if they make re­ports about bul­ly­ing.

The lat­est in­ci­dent comes amid grow­ing con­cerns about vi­o­lence among school­child­ren, fol­low­ing a sim­i­lar at­tack in­volv­ing a Form One stu­dent of Ce­dros Sec­ondary School.

In that in­ci­dent, a 13-year-old girl was al­leged­ly lured to­wards a near­by shop by a stu­dent she con­sid­ered a friend be­fore be­ing at­tacked on Oc­to­ber 26.

The child’s moth­er said the at­tack­er struck her daugh­ter, threw her to the ground and caused her to hit her head against a lamp post. The girl sus­tained in­juries to both knees and was left limp­ing.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion sub­se­quent­ly con­firmed that one stu­dent had been sus­pend­ed for five days, while both stu­dents were re­ferred to the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion.

The moth­er of the in­jured stu­dent said she was con­sid­er­ing crim­i­nal charges and seek­ing a trans­fer for her daugh­ter be­cause she no longer felt safe send­ing her to the school.

The in­ci­dents have brought re­newed at­ten­tion to the trag­ic death of 15-year-old Jay­den Lalchan, a Form Four stu­dent of St Stephen’s Col­lege in Princes Town, who died by sui­cide on Oc­to­ber 3, 2024.

His par­ents, Ro­han and Fa­ree­da Lalchan, had al­leged that their son en­dured years of phys­i­cal and ver­bal bul­ly­ing by school­mates and that their com­plaints were not ad­e­quate­ly ad­dressed.

His death trig­gered wide­spread pub­lic out­rage, can­dle­light vig­ils and calls for greater ac­count­abil­i­ty from schools in deal­ing with bul­ly­ing.

How­ev­er, po­lice sub­se­quent­ly said there was in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to es­tab­lish that bul­ly­ing had led to the teenag­er’s death, and no charges were laid.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has since tak­en a strong po­si­tion against school vi­o­lence, warn­ing that stu­dents who as­sault or bat­ter oth­er chil­dren could face ex­pul­sion and crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion.

In June 2025, she de­clared that every oc­cur­rence of as­sault or bat­tery in schools would be treat­ed as an ex­pellable of­fence, while al­so warn­ing that stu­dents could face ar­rest.

More re­cent­ly, she re­it­er­at­ed her call for vi­o­lent and per­sis­tent­ly dis­rup­tive stu­dents to be re­moved from schools, ar­gu­ing that oth­er chil­dren should not have to at­tend class­es in fear of be­ing beat­en, ha­rassed or in­tim­i­dat­ed.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath has al­so main­tained that bul­ly­ing, whether phys­i­cal, ver­bal, psy­cho­log­i­cal or on­line, has no place in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. He has said that where in­ves­ti­ga­tions es­tab­lish wrong­do­ing, con­se­quences will fol­low in keep­ing with the Stu­dent Code of Con­duct, while af­fect­ed stu­dents can ac­cess coun­selling and oth­er sup­port through the Min­istry’s Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion.