Boy killed by truck had saved $30,000 in piggy bank
Published:Monday | January 23, 2023 | 6:15 AM
Weeks after the third anniversary of the death of seven-year-old Clan Carty Primary School student, Benjamin Bair, his grandfather Joseph Campbell broke his piggy bank to satisfy his curiosity about how much the deceased boy had saved.
Campbell told The Gleaner that he was surprised that Bair, who was crushed by an ill-fated garbage truck at school, had amassed $30,000 in cash.
“Every day mi cry fi him, man. Trust mi. Mi feel every pain,” the tearful grandfather said Sunday, recalling how the thrifty boy often retained half of the money gifted to him to purchase ice cream.
“Even him lunch money, him carry it home and drop some of it inna him saving pan ... Mi feel proud a him, too. Mi love da little youth.”
Campbell wept again as he reflected on the looming sentence against Alten Brooks, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the October 28, 2019, tragedy after the garbage truck pinned down the schoolboy, killing him.
The truck driver had used a stick to brace the accelerator pedal before exiting the vehicle.
While Brooks was outside, the truck drove off and overturned after it collided with a Toyota motor car parked on the compound.
On Friday, attorney-at-law Davion Vassell pleaded for mercy for the 55-year-old Brooks in a last-ditch attempt to convince Supreme Court Justice Leighton Pusey that a suspended sentence could be punishment enough for his client.
“When Mr Brooks was taken into custody, he was in custody for two months, and he said it was one of the hardest parts of his life,” said Vassell, arguing that the judge had a plethora of non-custodial options for the first-time offender.
Campbell said each time he sees Seraphine Bair, Benjamin’s sister, memories of the deceased boy come flooding back.
“Mi mommy gone and mi nuh cry so. Mi father gone and mi nuh cry so, but since this youth ya dead, mi feel it, and it make mi nerves cut down one a di time,” the 66-year-old man said.