Still no accountability for ‘Springer terror’, says Opposition Senator

Prime Minister Mia Mottley and other members of Cabinet have been called out for not apologising to the children, parents and teachers of Springer Memorial School following the “terror” incident there last year.

Opposition Senator Tricia Watson, whose daughter previously attended the Government Hill institution, told the Upper House during debate on the Child Protection Bill, 2024 that what happened to the students there should not be forgotten and should never be repeated.

As part of a simulation done in conjunction with The Barbados Police Service and the Barbados Defence Force on October 11, 2023, masked men with fake guns and machetes, stormed the all-girls school.

In a forceful presentation on Wednesday, Senator Watson placed the blame for the incident that left several students traumatised squarely at the feet of the administration.

“[Government] is responsible for children during those six hours that the children are in school . . . . Yes, what happened on that day is the government’s fault and it runs afoul of the principles of this Bill,” she told the Senate.

The attorney-at-law told Senate colleagues she supported the Child Protection Bill and lauded all those who worked on the 800-page report of the Joint Select Committee, including Parliament staff and public officers. She also praised those who made submissions, though she noted that some important submissions appeared not to have been accounted for in the updated Bill.

However, Senator Watson stressed that the government had a responsibility to children that was not limited to what was identified in the Bill.

Reflecting on the incident at Springer Memorial, Watson said the students felt “terrorised”.

She said the “horror of that day” was not just about over-exuberant planners of the simulation or girls overreacting or “having a panicked response”.

“I was perturbed by the characterisation of the response of mere children on that day. They are children who we tell cannot make decisions for themselves, but we were expecting them to behave like hardened adults when that terror was visited upon them,” the senator pointed out.

Watson told the Senate chamber the attack occurred on over 1 000 children and teachers “in a school administered by government”.

“To this day, the same government has refused to take direct responsibility. None of the usual loquacious ministers and representatives, including the Prime Minister, has apologised to those children – except for the head of the Ministry of Education. Parents and teachers have not got an apology either. No one has been held accountable for that act,” she asserted.

She was also critical of those who blamed the students for their reaction to the “terror inflicted on them”.

Senator Watson added: “We have not heard of a police investigation or arrest, charges or identification of the men who marauded through the school that day; no dismissals or discipline that the public is aware of.

For me, this runs counter to the principles that are embedded in the child protection laws.”

She insisted that the government has to take responsibility for what occurred at the school “because government appoints the boards, employs the teachers and principals, and allocates the children to the schools”. (IMC1)