GRANGE HILL, Westmoreland – A school’s security guard, Samuel Bent, remained in police custody last night, accused of pouring acid on a student with whom he had an argument over the appropriateness of the boy’s uniform.

The Grange Hill High School student, Fabian Wallace, 16, was burnt on the neck, arm and abdomen. Wallace claimed that the attack happened when he knocked Bent’s hand away while the guard was pointing in his face.

But in Bent’s version of events, he acted in self-defence when the student confronted him with a machete, according to the school’s vice-principal, Cecil Cupidon.

Yesterday the principal, Alton Braddock, was seeking to convene an emergency meeting of the school’s board to discuss the specific issue and discipline at Grange Hill High in general.

Cupidon, at the same time, complained about serious disciplinary problems at the school, charging that some students openly flouted authority and even harassed the security guard.

“Bent comes under serious threats from time to time about stabbings and shootings,” Cupidon said, although he stressed that the school did not support the security guard carrying offensive weapons.

Added Cupidon: “We are now highlighting some of the problems we have with these troubled students, who from time to time feel that they should not be brought under control.

“They (feel) that they should not be brought under control, they should have their own way, they should wear anything to school and no one should question them (and that) they should stay out of class and nobody should try to get them in class.

“It is a struggle to get them to comply.”

In fact, it was Bent’s attempt to upbraid Wallace about his clothes that triggered yesterday’s incident.

Wallace arrived at school at about 7:15 yesterday morning and was stopped at the gate by Bent, who apparently told the youngster that he had to remove a white shirt he was wearing under the school’s regulation khaki.

According to Wallace, when he refused to comply, the guard’s response was to order him home and declare that school was over for the student for the day.

As the argument escalated, Wallace said, the guard pointed a finger in his face and he knocked the hand away.

“Him did have a lock and key in him hand and him put it down and say he is going to leave the job,” Wallace said. “By the time me turn me back, me see him with a yellow jug and him dash it off ah me.”

Realising that he was burnt with acid, Wallace said he jumped into a taxi owned by his father, that had brought him to school, and was taken away for treatment at the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital. He was later released.

However, in Bent’s report, relayed by Cupidon, not only was Wallace’s white undershirt showing, but he was not wearing the school tie. He rejected the guard’s insistence to get into the proper attire and during the argument attempted to force his way through the gate.

According to Cupidon, the guard reacted by pushing the student who went to the trunk of his father’s taxi for a machete.

It was on seeing the boy advancing with the machete that Bent went to his station and returned with a bottle of acid that he poured on Wallace.

“The school does not support the security (guard) in anyway to carry knife, machete or acid,” Cupidon said.