Residents of Trents, St. James Call for Urgent Police and Child Care Board Intervention Amid Concerns Over Behavior of Eight-Year-Old Boy

Residents in Trents, St James, say they are being traumatised by an eight-year-old boy and are calling for an urgent intervention by police and the Child Care Board.

The boy is said to have a violent streak, harms and injures both people and animals, uses profanity towards adults and has an obsession with fire.

The situation was brought to light on Wednesday evening when he lit a mattress which was in a container, causing a fire to break out in the close-knit neighbourhood.

Fearing that it could spread to nearby houses, some residents grabbed hoses and doused the flames, which started to burn a tree next to the container.

Police were called but residents said they never turned up.

Situation

“People was calling the police at Holetown Station and all they ask is if the fire out. Nobody ain’t turn up to deal with this situation even though they are familiar with this boy,” an upset resident said.

The boy lives with his 24-year-old mother, five siblings and other family members.

A woman said she went into panic mode when a neighbour ran to her and said there was a fire next door to her house.

“A man come out here and ask me if I ain’t see all the smoke,” said the woman, who was at the back of her house. “I almost [wet] my pants because my husband, who is disabled, was at home.

“I run out there and see a lot of smoke. The boy mother was also out there and all she keep saying is that something wrong with he head. This fire could’ve spread to even their house,” the upset woman said.

Complained

She said she has complained to the mother repeatedly about the boy lighting fire on the open land.

“Whenever I speak to the boy about his behaviour, he does tell me, ‘[expletive] you and carry yuh [expletive]’, so I don’t have anything to say to him, but yuh can’t talk to the mother either.

“You imagine he always out there saying he roasting breadfruit and saying he cooking chicken. I saw him put a fowl in a cage and when the fowl was fighting to get out, he bend the fowl legs and say: ‘I gine kill you’.”

Her husband said he also tried to speak to the boy’s mother and also the lad about his recalcitrant behaviour, but to no avail.

“If you go out there he gine curse you. She [the mother] does curse

you too. The other day, I told her: ‘I wouldn’t even complain to you fuh he because he gine curse you’ and she tell me that is he mouth. That little boy real hard ears. He does light a fire out here every day saying he roasting breadfruit.”

Another resident said the child was out of control.

Curse people

“He is only eight years old and he does walk the road and curse big people. I understand he does curse the teachers at school. If you tell him anything, the first thing he does say is ‘[expletive] you’. It don’t make no sense complaining to his mother because he will cuss she too.”

While the mother was not at home, an elderly woman who identified herself as the boy’s great grandmother admitted he was a troubled child, pointing out that he had beaten her on three occasions.

“I was not home when the fire start so I don’t know what went on. He hit me in my head with two rocks; he cut me on my hand. He want help,” she cried.

Circumstances

Asked if the Child Care Board was aware of the child’s circumstances, she said “yes”.

“The Child Care Board does come. He was supposed to go to a psychiatrist but nobody ain’t take him.”

The 73-year-old woman said when she asked the boy about the fire, “he tell me he ain’t do it on purpose”.

Another woman who lives in the neighbourhood and is a friend of the boy’s mother, charged that he was not the only child lighting the fires.

“To be honest, he is not the only one that does go down there lighting the fire. Them gine say it is he because he hard ears because if they tell he something, he does get on. People does aggravate he and they know he hard ears so they does just got he . . . .”

Officials at the Child Care Board said they were looking into the matter. ( Nation News Desk)