A trusted head custodian at St. Joseph’s College has been charged with attempted murder after police allege he tried to blow up the school.

Caretaker Vincent Perna, 67, was charged Friday by police after an investigation confirmed that a gas line that had been severed Thursday around 6:30 a.m. in the basement of the Catholic girls’ high school on Wellesley St. near Bay St.

Police allege Perna then went to the staff room and tried to help kitchen staff light the stove. The custodian had worked at the school for 15 years and has been employed in the Catholic board for a total of 30 years.

“Everyone’s shocked,” said Natasha Tyzler, who is on the school’s basketball team. The Grade 12 student says that Perna came to all the games and made the players lunch afterward when the team made it to the city-wide finals in 2011 for the first time in 15 years.

He “supported us on our journey,” said Tyzler.

Her mother Anna Tyzler said Perna “was very pleasant and nice. He volunteered his time on the weekends … The nicest person I could speak to and hence the reason I was in complete shock.”

Emergency personnel were called around 7:30 a.m. on Thursday after reports that a strong smell was permeating the school. Staff and students, who were there for before-school activities, were evacuated.

Students who were arriving were also evacuated to Queen’s Park.

“We never entered into the school,” said Tyzler. “It was all over Twitter that there was a gas leak at the school and there were teachers outside sending us to Queen’s Park,” she said. Students weren’t allowed to stand on the sidewalk.

“Students were evacuated as a precautionary measure and emergency services, including Enbridge and the fire department, arrived on scene and shut off the gas,” said board spokesperson John Yan.

At the time, no one thought the gas had been deliberately cut.

“Obviously the assumption was there was a faulty gas line, not that it was perpetrated and done on purpose,” said Toronto Catholic school board trustee Jo-Ann Davis, who graduated from St. Joe’s. “Thank God no one was harmed.”

Students were allowed back in the school in the afternoon once health officials deemed it safe, but Yan said they were dismissed early because of a lingering odour.

Students were back in class Friday and board officials didn’t know Perna had been charged until 5 p.m. The school posted an information letter online and sent one home to parents.

By “all accounts he was a model employee,” said Yan. “I would imagine that staff and students are shocked by it.”

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Yan said that because of the charges, the school will offer counselling on Monday. “The safety of the students is our number one priority,” he said.

Perna has been suspended from work and charged with numerous offences including attempted murder, attempted arson, mischief endanger life and break and enter with intent. He appeared in court at Old City Hall on Friday.