Jornal de Leiria – Leiria Court sentences coach to suspended sentence for sexual abuse of children

The Judicial Court of Leiria sentenced a coach to a single sentence of two and a half years in prison, suspended upon execution, for four crimes of sexual abuse of children of which three minors were victims.

The suspension of the sentence, for an equal period, is subject to probation, and the defendant was also sentenced to compensate the minors between 1,500 euros and four thousand euros.

The panel of judges acquitted the skating coach of 500 crimes of sexual abuse of children and 389 crimes of sexual abuse of dependent minors of which he was also accused by the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP).

The ruling, handed down this week, among other proven facts, stated that, in December 2019, a minor, aged 12, complained of pain in her leg and went to the defendant’s house, “so that he could massage her leg” .

He started massaging her leg “from the knee to the groin area” and “slightly moved the girl’s underwear away”, touching her “in the vulvar area and massaging the genital area”, and she told her to stop.

The document stated that the trainer referred to her as a “good ass” in cell phone conversations and in training, when the minor did not perform the exercises as he intended, she “shouted and scolded”, using profanity.

In the case of another minor, then 13 years old, during training, “he hugged her and felt her buttocks, telling her ‘you’re so good’”.

When she was 14 years old, during training and internships, he used swear words and insulted her several times when she did not perform the exercises as intended by the coach.

The ruling also proved facts relating to a third minor who, at the age of 13, after publishing a photo of herself in a bikini on a social network, the coach reacted with various expressions, including “all the ass”.

For the court, the defendant acted “with the realized purpose of satisfying his lascivious sexual impulses”, using “intimate/sexualized terms” in conversations with the minors, making sexual proposals to two of them and carrying out sexual acts.

To all of them, he made use of the ascendancy he had, resulting from his age, experience and functions, and the trust that they placed in him, highlighted the ruling, according to which the coach put into question the normal sexual development of the minors who, for example , they felt embarrassed and disturbed.

According to the document, at trial, the defendant denied “most of the facts” alleged, explaining that “all physical touches/contacts” were “solely intended to correct body postures in the exercise of his duties as a coach”, further denying having directed profanity/vernacular at minors.

Even so, he admitted that he called one of them “by the nickname ‘good ass’” and that, in the case of the comment on the photograph, he apologized and deleted it soon after.

In forming the court’s conviction, “the statements for future memory made” by the offended parties were decisive, who gave “clear, detailed and coherent reports”.

“The defendant had easy access to the minors and had the opportunity to carry out the acts, and no reasonable reason has been uncovered that would even allow us to suspect the existence of any mystification/fabulation on the part of the minors”, it reads.

In determining the sentence, the court took into account the “defendant’s privilege and his good family and social integration”, considering that “the mere censorship of the fact and the threat of prison still achieve, in an adequate and sufficient way, the purposes of the punishment” .

The court also considered that, “despite the seriousness of the facts”, prohibiting the defendant from carrying out his professional activity as a coach “is to condemn him, without further ado, to destitution and total economic and financial dependence on his parents”, therefore rejected the application of additional penalties requested by the MP.