The Public Ministry of the Braga Court and the minor’s father appealed to the Relationship de Guimarães sentenced to three years in prison, suspended, by a 51-year-old teacher, for the crime of sexual abuse of a dependent minor, of successive treatment, in the person of a 15-year-old student.
The MP requests a sentence, not suspended, of four years and six months, while the family’s lawyer, Miguel de Melo Lomba argues that he should be imprisoned for five years, and that the compensation to the minor, eight thousand euros, should go up to 50,000. The lawyer also criticizes the fact that the suspension of the sentence is not even dependent on the payment of compensation, stressing that “it may not even pay”.
In the appeal, the lawyer maintains that the defendant’s crime, “which in itself is serious, is even more serious because it is the victim’s teacher. Our society cannot trust justice, and feel safe, if it is not sure that this type of crimes committed by teachers on students is exemplarily punished ”.
And he asks: “It is necessary to ask if this is the message that the courts want to transmit to society. If the consequence of driving on the highway at 180km is more serious than a teacher sexually abusing his 14 year old student? ”
The Public Prosecutor writes that, “given the type of crime, the guilt shown above by the accused, the deceit, as well as the teacher-student relationship, the suspension of the execution of the sentence transmits a sign of impunity, causing even an alarm Social”. This – he adds – “not to mention the devastating consequences on the person of the victim”.
Contacted by O MINHO, the defender of the defendant João Ferreira Araújo said that he will counter-claim defending that the penalty applied in Braga “is fair and balanced and serves the objectives of justice”.
Court censorship
In November, when reading the judgment, the judges censored the conduct of the teacher, since he knew that the girl had “low self-esteem”.
Despite this, the Court did not prohibit him from teaching, either in public or private education, allowing him to exercise the function as is currently the case in a gym. The defendant was dismissed by the Ministry of Education, but appealed to the Administrative Court, if not yet tried.
Consensual relations
Consensual love relationships. That was how the teacher described the relationship with the student.
At the trial, the young woman’s testimony, recorded in 2017 for future memory, by PJ de Braga, and in which she corroborates the version, that there were sexual contacts, without copulation, between the two, by mutual will and without him having forced her.
The 51-year-old married man confessed and expressed regret, saying it was a mutual attraction, although he knew it was illegal.
The teacher, in addition to fitness, taught chess, where the student enrolled. The relationship, the prosecution says, began in January 2017.
It involved hugs, kisses, and amorous encounters, with groping, in a store owned by the teacher. In May, colleagues denounced the case, and the defendant asked him to say nothing. This led the Court to stress that the abuses did not go further because of this.
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