An eleven-year-old girl is dead and her father assisting police with investigations, after she sustained fatal injuries in a fire at her Malabar home on Wednesday night. Residents described the girl as 'special-needs' and the father as mentally-challenged. Rynessa Cutting has more.
00:00I myself was thinking, I wonder if the neighbours know this child, the father alone, and they
00:05know, they're supposed to know the situation of the man, because he does be clean, eh?
00:10But sometimes he put a rubber slipper, or he barefooted, and he just be just walking
00:15fast, just on the hand going, so. See here? That is all, so.
00:19It takes a village. But with each person dealing with their own challenges, sometimes people
00:24fall through the cracks. Such was the sad tale of 11-year-old Anna
00:28Love Tate, a special needs child who neighbours say lived with her father, who they described
00:34as mentally challenged. Her mother died a few years ago.
00:38I went by the gate and I spoke with them, but she just watching me like, and she not
00:42talking and stuff and things. So I said, who keeping her? How are you going? And who keeping
00:47the child? He said, he's taking care of the child.
00:50For me, I find that was craziness. I called insurance authority. And when I called insurance
00:55authority, the only thing I couldn't remember was the name, because so long, I couldn't
01:00remember the surname. So they said they forget the information and what, but the same time
01:04with my daughter, my daughter had lived in England and she died. So I had to be up and
01:08down. So when I came back now, I clean forget.
01:14Reports are that the child's father is now assisting police with the investigation. As
01:19she was said to be home alone when the fire broke out. Another neighbour who assisted
01:24in the initial rescue efforts tells TV6, it was a stranger who raised the alarm.
01:30So a gentleman woke up to us and asked us if we can assist him in his house, because
01:35the house is on fire. One of the rooms on fire. He doesn't want to go in alone because
01:40he don't want to look suspicious based on him going in by himself. So we assisted him.
01:46I came out of the residence to look for any pipe that has a hose to try to, you know,
01:51soak down what we can soak down the fire and saw no hose. So I went to my house, got two
01:56hoses and try to connect. But, you know, the pipe had no water. I called 999. And when
02:04I did, the operator that had a recording came on, that a recorder came on and I had my wife.
02:13She ended up going to Google to call the fire service in Arima and then they came shortly after.
02:20The incident is said to have occurred around 8pm. A fire service report says when responders
02:25arrived, the northern side of the house was well alight. Firefighters gained entry and
02:30rescued the 11-year-old girl. She was taken to the Arima health facility suffering from
02:35third degree burns. It is unknown at exactly what point she passed away.
02:41Can you share with us your memories of the victim? I know you said you always would hear her singing and things like that.
02:45Yeah, in the morning, every morning she's singing. She's, you know, you can tell during school hours she's home, so I know she's, you know, a special needs child.
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