STEPHON NICHOLAS

GML To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has de­nied li­a­bil­i­ty in the fa­tal jet ski ac­ci­dent at Pi­geon Point beach which claimed the life of sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie.

The for­mer San Fer­nan­do TML stu­dent was struck by a jet ski on April 8 while in the bathing-on­ly zone at the pop­u­lar beach. She was lat­er pro­nounced dead at Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Re­spond­ing to a Ju­ly 15 pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter, the Di­vi­sion of Le­gal Af­fairs said the THA con­tin­ues to em­pathise with the Jo­gie fam­i­ly over the tragedy.

How­ev­er, it said the le­gal ac­tion by the fam­i­ly, rep­re­sent­ed by Free­dom Law Cham­bers, was mis­di­rect­ed.

In­stead, the di­vi­sion ad­vised An­gel­i­ca’s fam­i­ly that the claim should fo­cus on jet ski op­er­a­tor Ash­worth Bur­nett, who is cur­rent­ly charged with manslaugh­ter.

The Jo­gie fam­i­ly is su­ing Bur­nett, the THA and Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park over An­gel­i­ca’s death. They al­lege the de­fen­dants breached their du­ty of care, adding that the THA should have learned from past in­ci­dents and tak­en suf­fi­cient steps to in­crease safe­ty at the beach.

How­ev­er, the di­vi­sion coun­tered that the THA has tak­en steps to ad­dress safe­ty con­cerns fol­low­ing pre­vi­ous ma­rine ac­ci­dents.

Ref­er­enc­ing a 2008 boat­ing ac­ci­dent in which the THA was sued, Ana Car­oli­na Bar­ry-La­so and Yanik Ques­nel v THA, Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park Lim­it­ed and The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the di­vi­sion said the judge iden­ti­fied the lack of sig­nage at Pi­geon Point, as well as the need for buoys and bar­ri­ers. The di­vi­sion said both is­sues have been ad­dressed.

It added that over the past 19 years, a suite of mea­sures has been adopt­ed, in­clud­ing a tem­po­rary ban on jet skis in 2011, the pres­ence of life­guards, col­lab­o­ra­tion with po­lice, as well as the pas­sage of bills by the As­sem­bly.

Free­dom Law Cham­bers in­formed the THA that if an am­i­ca­ble so­lu­tion was not found by Sep­tem­ber 9, it in­tend­ed to take the mat­ter to court.