Effective arrest of a former kindergarten teacher in Caldas da Rainha for child abuse

This Thursday, the Court of Leiria sentenced the former kindergarten teacher in Caldas da Rainha to an effective prison sentence for six crimes of abuse, given that the children were subjected to an “environment of psychological terror”.

The then teacher was sentenced to a single sentence – five years and three months in prison.

The former educational assistant was sentenced to one sentence of two years and six months in prison, suspended for the same period, and suspended for two offenses of abuse, and the former educational assistant was acquitted.

“What you did is very serious. You are leaving here with a valid sentence that you will have to serve unless another court decides otherwise,” the presiding judge said, reading out the ruling, addressing a former nursery employee who served as an authorized teacher .

Stressing that they are minors and “the whole society must protect them,” the trial judge emphasized that “parents, grandparents, uncles send their children there thinking that they are being treated well,” but “you failed to take care of them for the sake of the children.” in his care.”

“Society demands that this court respond to these types of situations,” the presiding judge added, noting that the court “was essentially convinced that it was mistreating children and their colleagues.”

Prosecutors charged the teacher with 11 crimes of abuse, and the assistant, who was acquitted today, with three. A third former employee, who was working as an educational/administrative assistant at the time, was charged with two counts of abuse. Two of them were also charged with complicity in cruelty.

In the case of the educational assistant, the court found that she grabbed the minor, lifted him into the air “forcibly, with both hands and placed him on a chair,” while another child, despite her resistance, while drinking milk, grabbed her from behind and “ forced a mug into her mouth, with one hand, and with the other hand he held the child by the chin, forcing her to drink,” for which the youngest was “completely wet and with milk flowing from her mouth.”

Also, according to the facts proven by the collective court, the teacher in the period from 2019 to May 2020 put babies under one year old, who could not yet walk, on the potty, completely dismissed.

In one situation, he grabbed a child by the hair so that he was left lying on the changing table, another child hit him in the face with an open hand, and also threw another child “forcibly” onto the counter/changing table.

Also according to the ruling, this defendant forcefully grabbed a child under one year old “by one arm” and lifted him “suspended in the air, holding only that upper limb, to a distance of more than two meters.”

The panel of judges also proved, among other things, that on another occasion a child who was crying a lot because he was hungry was told: “You will eat when I want, not when you want.”

When he stopped crying, the teacher “suddenly took out the pacifier” and began “forcibly, repeatedly and successively inserting spoons of soup into his mouth,” preventing him from breathing or swallowing.

According to the court, the defendants sentenced this Thursday acted “with the purpose of physically, verbally and psychologically molesting children in their care between the ages of 3 months and 4 years, completely defenseless and unable to defend themselves and complain, knowing that their actions will certainly cause disturbances that will result in serious changes in behavior that can jeopardize their harmonious physical and mental development.”

These defendants were also fully aware that they were insulting the health, physical and mental integrity of children by subjecting them to “treatment that does not respect their physical and mental health (…), exposing them to an atmosphere of psychological terror, violence and aggressiveness, as well as neglect of their personal dignity.”