Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion will pro­vide sup­port to a To­ba­go teenag­er re­cent­ly ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with his rel­a­tive’s death.

Sec­re­tary of Ed­u­ca­tion Or­lan­do Kerr yes­ter­day con­firmed that Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices will con­tact the Form Four stu­dent’s fam­i­ly to as­sist with his rein­te­gra­tion in­to the class­room.

The 15-year-old was re­leased from po­lice cus­tody on Wednes­day as in­ves­ti­ga­tors await the au­top­sy re­port on the death of 70-year-old Leon Scot­land be­fore de­cid­ing on their next course of ac­tion.

The teenag­er was held over the week­end af­ter Scot­land sus­tained a blow to the head dur­ing an al­ter­ca­tion at their Welling­ton Trace, Ply­mouth, home on Sat­ur­day. He was tak­en to Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment but died the fol­low­ing day.

Kerr said Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices would as­sess whether the teenag­er re­quires coun­selling as he re­turns to school.

“Our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem is about try­ing to as­sist our stu­dents as best as pos­si­ble, and, of course, Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices will reach out and see if there is any coun­selling nec­es­sary for rein­te­grat­ing the young gen­tle­man back in the school,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to a close rel­a­tive of the boy yes­ter­day, who said he re­mains in good spir­its de­spite the trau­mat­ic or­deal. He said the teenag­er vis­it­ed him at his Ply­mouth home on Wednes­day af­ter be­ing re­leased.

“He sit down and we talk. He’s okay. He’s strong. He is a strong boy,” he said.

The rel­a­tive said the fam­i­ly is ral­ly­ing around the teenag­er and fo­cus­ing on his re­turn to the class­room.

The new school term opened on Mon­day while the boy was still in po­lice cus­tody.

“He have to start back he school­ing and thing. I doh sky­lark with that,” he said.

He added that mem­bers of the pub­lic have been spec­u­lat­ing and mak­ing neg­a­tive com­ments about the teenag­er de­spite not know­ing him or what had hap­pened.

He in­sist­ed the boy was not ag­gres­sive, de­scrib­ing him as a jovial and tal­ent­ed foot­baller.

Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Rod­hil Kirk said no date has been set for the au­top­sy. A foren­sic pathol­o­gist is ex­pect­ed to ar­rive from Trinidad to con­duct the pro­ce­dure.

Kerr said he re­mained trou­bled by the in­ci­dent, which he de­scribed as un­for­tu­nate.

“Jus­tice must be served in what­ev­er the sit­u­a­tion is, but I am re­al­ly hop­ing there is some good end to this en­tire mat­ter. I’m hop­ing all ends well for every­one con­cerned.”

He urged young peo­ple to avoid im­pul­sive be­hav­iour and think care­ful­ly be­fore tak­ing ac­tion.