Schoolboy, 11, awarded $20,000

The award of damages made by Justice Frank Seepersad yesterday will be placed in a Unit Trust account until the child reaches the age of 18, the judge further ordered. Seepersad made the award in an oral ruling one day after the boy Nickel Audhan, 11, of Hermitage Village, Macaulay, Claxton Bay, testified in court about the incident which took place on February 2, 2010, at the Macaulay Government Primary School.

The child said he pushed the door to the washroom while another pupil, who was inside, pushed the door onto him and the edge of the door squeezed his right hand against the frame. He spoke of the pain he endured and still experiences. In his ruling, Justice Seepersad found the boy and his mother Yvonne Geeta Audhan, to be truthful witnesses while he said there were several inconsistencies in the testimony of school principal Raffiena Ali-Boodoosingh, who claimed Audhan caused his own injury and violated school rules as he and two other children were playing near the toilet when the child’s hand was injured.

Audhan was represented by attorney Rennie Gosein while Kendra Mark and Natoya Moore appeared for the Attorney General.

In his ruling, Seepersad said the vulnerability of small children “has to be a focal point of concern to school administrators.” He said it was difficult to comprehend how young children could be left unattended, adding that the mandate of educators was not limited to education but to ensuring the safety and well-being of their charges.

At the time of the incident Nickel was five.

“The future of our nation’s children does not rest in school bags but in the level of nurturing, stimulating and moulding given to them,” he said, calling on administrators to ensure that small children are adequately supervised while at school. “Anything short of such arrangement is an abdication of the responsibility placed on schools both under the common law and by virtue of the Education Act,” he said, adding that the Macaulay Government Primary School principal knew that the doors at the institution were dangerous.

The judge said a door stop or some other device should have been used to ensure that the door remained open as he found the school administrators to have been negligent by failing to supervise the child and ensuring safety measures were in place as well as having breached the statutory duty to do the same. “The duty imposed upon the education system is a non-delegatable duty that has to always be at the focal point of the individual school administration and the Ministry of Education. If we do not protect our children, then we are destined to fail,” Seepersad said.