Trinidad: Cops to file manslaughter charges against driver for toddler’s death in school bus

(Trinidad Guardian) Po­lice are mov­ing to lay a charge of in­vol­un­tary manslaugh­ter against a Cen­tral school bus dri­ver more than a week af­ter a tod­dler died in her care.

The 31-year-old woman, who has re­tained a lawyer, will spend the week­end in prison as po­lice fi­nalise the process of lay­ing a charge.

Po­lice said the last set of in­ter­views was ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed yes­ter­day fol­low­ing which a file will be sent to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions with rec­om­men­da­tions.

“The dri­ver did not ex­er­cise due dili­gence with the tod­dler who was en­trust­ed in her care. As such we are mov­ing to charge her for this,” a po­lice source said. Once in­struc­tions are giv­en, the woman will be charged fol­low­ing which she will ap­pear in court.

The dri­ver has been in cus­tody since Thurs­day but fell ill and was tak­en for med­ical treat­ment at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Last week the body of three-year-old Isa­iah Hazel was found on the bus. He had ap­par­ent­ly fall­en asleep while head­ing to school and the dri­ver did not no­tice him sleep­ing on the floor of the bus. The dri­ver was sup­posed to drop Isa­iah and his school­mates to the Morn­ing Star Ear­ly Child­hood Cen­tre in Cal­i­for­nia, Cou­va.

The child re­mained on the bus for an en­tire day and it was on­ly af­ter the dri­ver re­turned to the school that she found Isa­iah’s body ly­ing on the floor of the bus. Her school bus was not reg­is­tered with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion. An au­top­sy con­firmed that Hazel died of hy­per­ther­mia caused by ex­treme heat and de­hy­dra­tion.

His fu­ner­al took place on Wednes­day.