Jet ski operator charged in Pigeon Point tragedy denied bail

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The jet ski op­er­a­tor ac­cused of caus­ing the death of sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie at the Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park on April 8 has been de­nied bail.

Ash­worth Bur­nett, aka Whis­tle, of Canaan, ap­peared be­fore Mas­ter Shah charged with manslaugh­ter at the Scar­bor­ough Mag­is­trates’ Court yes­ter­day. He was not called up­on to plead and was re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody. He is ex­pect­ed to reap­pear in court on Oc­to­ber 20 for a sta­tus hear­ing.

The 33-year-old was re-ar­rest­ed at his home on Mon­day, af­ter Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard ad­vised that a manslaugh­ter charge be laid. The jet ski op­er­a­tor in­volved in the in­ci­dent al­leged­ly fled the scene of the fa­tal ac­ci­dent and was held hours lat­er at his home. How­ev­er, he was re­leased pend­ing fur­ther in­quiries.

Po­lice claim Bur­nett breached the bathing-on­ly zone at the pop­u­lar beach be­fore crash­ing in­to Jo­gie and oth­er rel­a­tives. The for­mer San Fer­nan­do TML stu­dent was pro­nounced dead at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, An­gel­i­ca’s fa­ther, Arnold Jo­gie, breathed a sigh of re­lief up­on hear­ing bail was de­nied.

“You do the crime, pay the time,” he said.

Jo­gie, an air-con­di­tion­ing tech­ni­cian, said the en­tire coun­try has been ag­griev­ed by his daugh­ter’s death.

“You ain’t do this to me alone. You do this to plen­ty peo­ple. Every­body go like this news.”

Al­most four months since the in­ci­dent, Jo­gie said the fam­i­ly re­mains trau­ma­tised and is see­ing a ther­a­pist.

He said the fam­i­ly has not vis­it­ed any beach, pool or wa­ter park since An­gel­i­ca’s un­time­ly pass­ing.

With school closed for the Ju­ly-Au­gust va­ca­tion, Jo­gie said painful mem­o­ries have been re­vived of their trag­ic trip to To­ba­go in East­er.

“It still like yes­ter­day. Once it pop up (on news) or you sit down by your­self or what­ev­er, it still hard on yuh. Yuh go home in the evening, she not there — and you know now is hol­i­day time,” he said.

Had the in­ci­dent not oc­curred, Jo­gie spec­u­lat­ed that the Bar­rack­pore fam­i­ly would have been va­ca­tion­ing again in To­ba­go once more.

“We might have been back in To­ba­go again. We might have been there again, but I eh think we go­ing through that again.”

The Jo­gies have ini­ti­at­ed le­gal ac­tion against the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park and Bur­nett over the in­ci­dent. In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter is­sued on Ju­ly 15, at­tor­neys from Free­dom Law Cham­bers claim An­gel­i­ca’s death was pre­ventable and a re­sult of neg­li­gence and breach of du­ty by the de­fen­dants.

The par­ties were giv­en 28 days to re­spond on whether they ac­cept­ed li­a­bil­i­ty for her death.