Penal student, 16, robbed at gunpoint

HOURS after a nearby school held a peaceful demonstration over safety concerns for students, a 16-year-old Penal Secondary School student, was robbed at gunpoint as classes ended for the day on September 19.

The victim told police he was standing at the corner of Clarke Road and Oliviere Drive, Penal around 2.30 pm when two men approached him. He said one of them pulled out a gun and announced a holdup. He handed over his iPhone 14, valued at $10,000, after which the men ran away.

The victim and his mother went to the Penal Police Station and reported the robbery. Police visited the scene and are continuing enquiries.

Eight hours earlier, the St Dominic’s RC Primary School’s Parent Teacher Council held a demonstration less than 200 feet away from where the boy was robbed.

The parents called for the school to be rebuilt and raised several issues plaguing the students and staff. Among them were safety concerns.

Oliviere Street is home to several schools. Heading up the hill from Clarke Road is Penal Secondary, followed by Holy Faith Convent. Sharing the compound with the all-girls’ school is a migrant school at the back of St Dominic’s RC Church, and the church’s parish hall houses the St Dominic’s Primary School’s infants.

The primary school was previously opposite, across Oliviere Street, but was decanted in 2017 after an earthquake compromised the building, leading to its being demolished.

The students have since been split between the church and, less than a kilometre away, the Standards One to Five students are housed at the Penal Community Centre.

During the protest, the council’s president Sharon Baptiste and TT Unified Teachers’ Association president Martin Lum Kin raised concerns over students’ safety. Lum Kin pointed out there was no dedicated security for the infants at the church. At the community centre, he said, ongoing programmes would see adults on the premises, who were strangers to the school, with the children and would often share washrooms with the students.

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