RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

A Sea Lots busi­ness­man lost his en­tire busi­ness, in­clud­ing ap­pli­ances and fur­ni­ture for sale, fol­low­ing an al­leged ar­son at­tack on Tues­day night.

The sus­pect, a 28-year-old woman who was de­tained by fam­i­ly mem­bers and hog-tied, was hand­ed over to the po­lice at about 2.35 pm yes­ter­day.

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia among the burnt-out rub­ble of what was once his work­shop yes­ter­day, Nizam Tay­lor, 58, spoke of the in­ci­dent al­leg­ing that he and his wife, Un­es Tay­lor, 63, were tor­ment­ed and threat­ened for five years, with the cul­mi­na­tion on Tues­day night when his work­shop was burnt to the ground.

“A sad day in my fam­i­ly life. A fe­male rel­a­tive of ours light my work­shop on fire and de­stroyed every­thing. It’s five years we’ve been go­ing through that prob­lem with her,” Tay­lor said.

“We tried to get her help by ward­ing her at St Ann’s but when the re­port came back they said noth­ing wrong men­tal­ly. We coped with it over the years. But yes­ter­day (Tues­day), she came and asked the sev­en-year-old grand­daugh­ter for cig­a­rettes and pa­per from the shop. The sev­en-year-old say she not al­lowed there and she start to get on,” he added.

“She said when she go asleep she will light the whole place on fire. Right now I am not sure how I’m go­ing to deal with my loss. I just re­cent­ly lost my son and we now try­ing to get out of that trau­ma.”

He ad­mit­ted he was con­fused and didn’t know where to start or if he can even make a restart.

“It’s about $150,000 in loss­es and no as­sis­tance yet. We didn’t get time to think on who to call or seek out as­sis­tance or any­thing like that.”

On Tues­day night when the po­lice were called to the scene, the fe­male sus­pect man­aged to es­cape and hide. The fam­i­ly was told by the po­lice that when and if she re­turned they should de­tain her and call the po­lice.

Short­ly af­ter 2 pm, the woman sur­faced at Tay­lor’s home and with a glass bot­tle in her hand and in full view of the Guardian Me­dia team, be­gan lay­ing threats. With the help of res­i­dents, the woman was even­tu­al­ly de­tained and hogtied with rope and duct tape and the po­lice called in.

A team of po­lice of­fi­cers, along with the am­bu­lance, ar­rived at about 2.20 pm. As the team of med­ical per­son­nel was at­tend­ing to her, how­ev­er, the woman man­aged to push away the per­son­nel and of­fi­cers and ran off. How­ev­er, Tay­lor and oth­er res­i­dents caught her, sub­dued her and hand­ed her over to the po­lice and med­ical tech­ni­cians. She was then tied to a stretch­er and tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for med­ical treat­ment.

Po­lice of­fi­cers said the woman will be again sent to St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment and an as­sess­ment, fol­low­ing which they will seek to lay charges against her for ar­son and threats.

As the po­lice of­fi­cers were es­cort­ing the sus­pect on the stretch­er to the am­bu­lance, an emo­tion­al Un­es cried and shout­ed at the po­lice to “jail her for good.”

“Please of­fi­cers tell me you all will jail her for good. She tor­ment­ed us for too long and we are scared for our lives. I need peace. We need to sleep good when the night reach. Since this fire hap­pen we ain’t sleep be­cause she promised to come burn down my par­lour and us in the house.”

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are con­tin­u­ing.

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