Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go jet ski op­er­a­tor Ash­worth Bur­nett has been on $250,000 bail for the past two months.

Bur­nett was charged with manslaugh­ter on Ju­ly 27 in con­nec­tion with the death of sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie on April 8. He is al­leged to have been rid­ing a jet ski that struck An­gel­i­ca and oth­er rel­a­tives in the bathing zone at Pi­geon Point beach.

An­gel­i­ca died at Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Bur­nett was de­nied bail when he ap­peared be­fore Mas­ter Shah at the Scar­bor­ough Mag­is­trates’ Court on Ju­ly 29. Days lat­er, bail was grant­ed fol­low­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion by his at­tor­ney.

Bur­nett reap­peared in court yes­ter­day, and the mat­ter was post­poned to Jan­u­ary 21, 2027.

De­spite the fa­tal in­ci­dent, safe­ty at To­ba­go’s beach­es re­mains a con­cern, with re­cent mea­sures im­ple­ment­ed by the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) com­pro­mised.

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the THA said buoys and ma­rine an­chors in­stalled to mark the bathing area at Pi­geon Point beach had been stolen. It said buoys were al­so in­stalled at Store Bay Beach Fa­cil­i­ty and Buc­coo Beach Fa­cil­i­ty, at a to­tal cost of $400,000.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine con­demned the thefts as a bla­tant dis­re­gard for pub­lic safe­ty.

The Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary (OCS) said that, fol­low­ing a man­date from Au­gus­tine, 900 feet of tem­po­rary oil buoys were in­stalled at Pi­geon Point on April 13 to mark the bathing area. The bar­ri­er was se­cured with 19 Dan­forth high-ef­fi­cien­cy ma­rine an­chors and chains while a per­ma­nent sys­tem was be­ing pur­chased and in­stalled.

How­ev­er, two days lat­er, sec­tions of the bar­ri­er washed ashore af­ter two of the an­chors were re­moved. By Oc­to­ber 13, the OCS said all 19 an­chors were miss­ing.

Be­tween Oc­to­ber 13 and 17, work be­gan on a per­ma­nent bathing de­mar­ca­tion sys­tem, with more than 1,500 feet of buoys in­stalled, the OCS said. On Mon­day, how­ev­er, about 30 feet of rope and five new­ly in­stalled buoys were cut and re­moved from the main bathing area at Pi­geon Point.

The OCS said the in­ci­dents had been re­port­ed to po­lice and urged any­one with in­for­ma­tion to as­sist with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.