Parents and children in Portugal had also better be careful. Just saw
this newspaper report:
A district court in Portugal sentenced a 47 year old teacher of English at a local private school on
20 counts of sexual abuse to 8.5 years in jail and a 20 year ban on teaching. He sat
7-year olds on his knee, went with his hands all over their intimate areas under their clothes and 'caressed' them. This touching took also place in break time.
The guy appealed and the appeal court ‘suspended’ his conviction, on the basis that while his
actions were of “a sexual nature”, they did not actually constitute crimes of sexual abuse. Wow, what?
The appeals court said: But “because it only happened once, with each of the aforementioned children,
because it happened in a public place and because, due it being the first approach of its kind,
it is likely to have left doubt in girls so young of the purpose”, the judges decided the first judgement was excessive. They suspended his sentence and barred him from being a teacher for just five years
. Furthermore,
the appeal court judges took into account that the former teacher had no criminal history and lived in a family environment. “The court decided to bet that he would distance himself from the practice of other crimes.”
What else is new. Predators rule. F.i., there was a
big pedophile scandal in 2003 in Portugal,
Casa Pia, in which high ranking ruling socialist politicians, army people, a tv presenter, a leading children's health expert and what not were implicated in a child sex ring case. Like in the Dutroux case, only minor perps were eventually convicted after the case dragged for years. 20 years later, one of the implicated high ranking politicians, former Socialist Party leader
Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, was until the end of March of this year President of the Assembly of the Republic! Last year, the brave Portuguese 'renegade judge' (no longer a judge of course)
labelled him a pedophile in a
video clip on You Tube, which was taken down immediately and our judge was banned from the bench.