Ramlogan to lead lawsuit against THA following jet ski tragedy

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The fam­i­ly of sev­en-year-old An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie, who was struck and killed by a jet ski at Pi­geon Point on April 8, in­tends to pur­sue le­gal ac­tion against the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) over the tragedy.

And An­gel­i­ca’s fa­ther, Arnold Jo­gie, says they have re­tained the ser­vices of Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, to do so.

“We have tak­en lawyers to han­dle the case,” Jo­gie said in a What­sApp mes­sage to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

The de­vel­op­ment comes ex­act­ly three months af­ter An­gel­i­ca and three oth­er rel­a­tives were hit by a jet ski while in the bathing-on­ly zone at the pop­u­lar beach. An­gel­i­ca’s par­ents and one of her un­cles were al­so in­jured in the in­ci­dent. How­ev­er, the for­mer San Fer­nan­do TML stu­dent re­ceived the worst of the in­juries, with se­vere trau­ma to her head. She was pro­nounced dead at the Scar­bor­ough Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

A male sus­pect, who al­leged­ly fled the scene af­ter the ac­ci­dent, was ar­rest­ed hours lat­er at his home in Canaan. The 32-year-old was re­port­ed­ly sleep­ing when po­lice ar­rived. He was lat­er re­leased pend­ing fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Asked yes­ter­day whether he was los­ing hope that An­gel­i­ca would get jus­tice, Jo­gie said, “No, I haven’t giv­en (up) hope yet. We need to get jus­tice for this tragedy and I still have hope that there will be jus­tice and to the law.”

How­ev­er, he again ex­pressed con­cern over the pace of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“That is a child. If we don’t get noth­ing hap­pen­ing, these guys across there would do the same thing to an­oth­er fam­i­ly.”

Jo­gie said the fam­i­ly is wait­ing for the crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings to be dealt with be­fore tak­ing any le­gal ac­tion.

Snr Supt Rod­hill Kirk on Tues­day re­vealed po­lice are ex­pect­ed to ap­proach the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for fur­ther ad­vice lat­er this week. He de­fend­ed the ap­proach of law en­force­ment, say­ing it was the first-ever crim­i­nal probe in such an in­ci­dent.

Fol­low­ing the tragedy, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said the THA had been held li­able for a sim­i­lar cir­cum­stance in the past.

In 2007, a pirogue maimed teenagers Yanik Ques­nel and his Span­ish girl­friend Ana Car­oli­na Bar­ry-La­so with its pro­peller at Pi­geon Point. Ques­nel was left paral­ysed while his girl­friend sus­tained in­juries to the left side of her body.

In 2010, Jus­tice Ju­dith Jones found that the Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park breached its du­ty of care in en­sur­ing the cou­ple was safe in its wa­ters.

Dur­ing an April ple­nary sit­ting, Au­gus­tine com­plained about the lack of en­force­ment of reg­u­la­tions at Pi­geon Point and oth­er ma­rine spaces. He warned that if the THA is sued, he would in­struct at­tor­neys to take ac­tion against the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment.

The in­ci­dent has raised se­ri­ous ques­tions about ma­rine safe­ty and saw the THA seek the court’s in­ter­ven­tion to pro­tect bathers from reck­less jet ski op­er­a­tors.

Aris­ing from the in­ci­dent, the THA passed the new Buc­coo Reef Ma­rine Park Bill in April. The bill ad­dress­es the use of wa­ter­craft and jet skis and in­creased penal­ties for sev­er­al of­fences, with some fines as high as $100,000.

Ef­forts to con­tact Au­gus­tine for a re­sponse were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day, as he did not re­spond to a What­sApp mes­sage up to press time.