The Porto Court of Appeal (TRP) sentenced a teacher from a school in Espinho to a prison sentence, after being punished with a fine in the first instance, for having assaulted seven foreign children.
The ruling, dated October 8th and consulted this Friday, 23rd, by Lusa, granted the appeal filed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP), revoking the appealed judgment and sentencing the defendant to a single sentence of one year in prison, with a suspended sentence, and a fine of 2,400 euros.
The 65-year-old teacher had been sentenced in March, in the Santa Maria da Feira court, to a single sentence of 350 days of fine at a daily rate of eight euros, for seven crimes of simple physical integrity and four crimes of insult.
The defendant was also acquitted of five crimes of slanderous reporting, as part of another case related to a complaint filed with the PSP against the parents of several students who accused her of attacking their children.
Unsatisfied with the decision, the MP appealed to the Report that changed the classification of crimes of offense to physical integrity, from simple to qualified, sentencing the defendant to a sentence of five months in prison, for each of the crimes.
The teacher was also convicted of the five crimes of slanderous reporting, with a penalty of 130 days of fine at a daily rate of eight euros, for each of the crimes.
The TRP decided to maintain the sentences applied in the first instance for the four crimes of insult, establishing the new legal maximum in the single sentence of one year in prison suspended upon its execution, for a period of two years, with the obligation for the defendant to attend programs appropriate to the prevention of violent behavior, and a 300-day fine at a daily rate of eight euros, totaling 2,400 euros.
The defendant will also have to pay 3,500 euros in compensation to the parents of five children as compensation for non-material damage, resulting from the crime of slanderous reporting, and five thousand euros to six of the minors who were attacked, for non-material damage suffered.
During the trial, the defendant denied the attacks, adding that she never hit any boy in 40 years of service and said that she treated the students as if they were her children. “I often sat them on my lap. I gave them all the support they needed and I never hit anyone,” he said.
Later, he would end up admitting “touching” the children’s heads with leaves and a book, to get their attention, when they were “a little distracted”: “There is a touch. There is no hitting. I attract attention like this. There is no blood”.
The facts occurred in the 2019/2020 school year, when the defendant was teaching 1st year students at basic school no. 3 in Anta, in the municipality of Espinho, district of Aveiro.
Among the minors were seven foreign students to whom, according to the prosecution, the defendant addressed several times saying that the foreigners were to blame for the crisis in Portugal and that they should go to their homeland.
The MP’s indictment also states that the defendant attacked several of these minors with slaps and blows to the head, and called them “disabled and stupid” when they got the answers wrong.
In January 2020, the teacher was removed from teaching these minors, following a disciplinary process initiated against her by the School Group, which concluded that the defendant “violated functional norms, namely the duties of care and correction”.
As a result, the General Directorate of Schools imposed a disciplinary penalty of suspension for 30 days, suspended in its execution for one year, with the teacher continuing to carry out teaching duties in basic education until the date on which the MP’s accusation was filed, in August 2023.