Braga Court sentenced a teacher of a 1st cycle school in that municipality to two years in prison, with physical and verbal aggression against a student, between 2014 and 2016.
By a decision of May 12, to which Lusa had access today, the court found that the teacher beat “practically every day” on the student’s head, with the palm of the hand or the knuckles.
Also according to the judgment, the teacher, who also insulted the student, would have hit the student with a wooden stick that she always carried with her, causing three wounds on her scalp.
The defendant was convicted of a crime of ill-treatment.
The facts were registered at the Escola Básica EB de Ortigueira, in Palmeira, Braga, of which the accused was the principal.
The student began, however, to complain of frequent stomach pains and to express disgust and panic towards the school, reason why the parents, surprising the behavior, put a tape recorder in the daughter’s backpack, to find out what was happening in the classes.
In the recording, the teacher’s screams and scrapes are audible.
In court, the 55-year-old defendant fully confessed the facts, expressed regret and shame and apologized to the victim.
He said that, at the time, he was going through a period of stress and psychological exhaustion, essentially due to the oncological disease suffered by his father, who died in March 2016.
In the judgment, the court emphasizes the “censorship” of the defendant’s behavior and the “humiliating and even cruel” way in which she treated the student.
It underlines the degree and intensity of the violence exerted on the victim, a child aged 6/7 years old, who was under his custody and protection, and the period in which this violence occurred, during two school years.
“It is manifestly inconceivable in a classroom that kind of action of a teacher / educator towards the student / student, either to put an end to any disorder or to react to any action”, reads in the judgment.
He also says that it is necessary to exclude, “at the present moment, any right of corporal punishment by teachers, since it cannot be considered covered by the pedagogical and teaching task”.
Even so, the court decided to suspend the sentence, taking into account that the accused has no criminal record, is inserted professionally, socially and family and has shown that she has internalized the illegality of her conduct.
“The depressive-anxious situation that the defendant presented between 2013 and 2016, following the hospitalization of the parent, cancer patient, may somehow mitigate their behavior, and make their behavior perceived, even if always unjustifiable”, says the judgment .
For the court, this would have been an “isolated point” in the defendant’s life.
Meanwhile, the defendant reached an agreement with the victim’s parents, accepting to pay them an indemnity of 12 thousand euros, for property and non-property damage.
The Sá de Miranda School Group instituted a disciplinary process against the teacher, concluding that she violated the rules of the function, namely the general duty of correction.
He applied a penalty of 50 days of suspension, suspended in his execution for a period of one year.
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