The Form Three boy from Brazil Secondary School who brought a cutlass to school, injuring a Form Four boy in a fight, has been suspended from school. However, if criminal charges are not filed, the boy may be allowed to return to school.
On Wednesday, 16-year-old Jodel Noel was taken to the Arima District Health Facility by the school’s nurse after he received a chop wound three centimetres deep on his left leg, a few inches above his ankle.
Contrary to reports, the chop wound was deep enough to need 85 stitches both inside and outside the cut but it was not deep enough to cause any damage to the bone.
Yesterday T&T Guardian visited Joel at his family’s home in the Heights of Gunapo, Arima, where he was resting. The day before, he was sent to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope.
The fight that landed Joel in the hospital was caused by one male Form Three student bullying a female student in the same form. Jodel said since Form One, that student was bullying his friend “Chenece.”
Jodel said on Tuesday, the Form Three boy tried to take “Chenece’s” money. When she refused, they fought and he ended up kicking “Chenece” three times in her stomach.
That boy threatened to come back the next day with a cutlass to kill “Chenece.” Following through with this threat, that Wednesday at lunch time, the boy brought a small machete concealed in his book bag, Joel said.
When the boy announced he had a cutlass, another boy who was in Form Four, tried to defend his friend.
While Joel maintained he was a bystander, T&T Guardian was able to speak to “Chenece”, with the permission of her mother, and she revealed Joel tried to protect her from the cutlass-wielding student.
She said when Joel saw the boy walk out of the Form Five block with his hand inside his bag, he believed he would have pulled out the cutlass when he reached “Chenece.” Another of her friends hit the boy and then she said Jodel hit him a jump kick.
She said the Form Three boy then pulled out his cutlass and chopped Jodel on his leg.
“A lot of us were there and we literally saw when he chopped him. I was feeling real bad because Jodel is my top friend at my school and he is always looking out for me since I got to the school,” “Chenece” said.
Sherwin Noel, Jodel’s father, went to speak with the school’s principal yesterday.
Speaking to Noel after the meeting, he said the school was trying to pull together all the information but many of the students did not want to say what happened and as it was close to the end of year there were a number of students who were not at school because of exams.
Noel added that the boy with the cutlass had been suspended for seven days, but because of a technicality in the Education Act which stated it was the constitutional right of a child to be educated—he could not be expelled.
The most that could be done, he added, was that his seven-day suspension could be extended by a month pending approval from the Ministry of Education.
Unless criminal charges were filed, he added, the boy who brought the cutlass to school would not be barred from attending Brazil Secondary School.
A communication official from the Education Ministry confirmed the boy had been suspended and encouraged Noel to report the incident to the police so they could deal with it.