An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Catholic priest Fr An­tho­ny de­V­er­teuil, who was the for­mer prin­ci­pal at St Mary’s Col­lege has now come out pub­licly about the bul­ly­ing in­ci­dent in­volv­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and an­oth­er stu­dent Im­ran Khan, which oc­curred some 33 years ago.

Dur­ing his homi­ly at Liv­ing Wa­ter Com­mu­ni­ty Chapel, Lenten mass in Port of Spain on Sat­ur­day, Fr de­V­er­teuil told the con­gre­ga­tion that a great joy he ex­pe­ri­enced was 33 years ago when he was the prin­ci­pal of St. Mary's Col­lege.

“Joy of for­giv­ing. One boy clubbed an­oth­er one on the head. Af­ter in­ves­ti­gat­ing, I can say that in the in­ter­est of jus­tice and com­pas­sion, I did not sus­pend him. I did not ex­pel him. I did not stop him from do­ing his ex­ams. I did not pun­ish him in any way.”

“I placed no record of the in­ci­dent on the files. I was hap­py to ac­knowl­edge him as a St. Mary's Col­lege boy in good stand­ing. The joy of be­ing oblig­ed, I can even say to for­give,” the priest said.

How­ev­er, Fr de­V­er­teuil said 33 years lat­er, in the in­ter­est of pol­i­tics, the in­ci­dent has been res­ur­rect­ed.  

“Once more, I have the hap­pi­ness of for­give­ness. It's in this fal­si­fied ver­sion of events that those who lied, those who slan­dered, those who ca­lum­ni­at­ed, those who led in­to er­ror, per­sons who were ea­ger to see evil, I for­give you all,” he point­ed out in his ser­mon.

Young has been ac­cused by the rel­a­tives of one of his for­mer school­mates of be­ing a bul­ly, which led to the school­boy at­tack­ing him with a ba­ton in re­tal­i­a­tion.

The in­ci­dent was high­light­ed in a so­cial post hours af­ter Young was in­au­gu­rat­ed as Prime Min­is­ter last week and has since gone vi­ral, spark­ing wide­spread na­tion­al de­bate on the is­sue.

The Prime Min­is­ter has since is­sued an apol­o­gy to all vic­tims of bul­ly­ing.