Suspect of sexual abuse of students is in pre-trial detention | Crime

The teacher from a 1st cycle school in Póvoa de Lanhoso who was arrested on suspicion of more than 2000 crimes of sexual abuse of children will be held in preventive detention. The information was confirmed to PÚBLICO this Thursday by a judicial source. The coercive measure was decreed this morning by the investigating judge of the Braga Court, where the teacher was presented for the first interrogation.

This 50-year-old man had already been taken to court the day before, but the process could not be carried out due to the court staff strike. He returned this Thursday, having remained silent before the investigating judge.

The teacher was detained by the Judiciary Police (PJ) following an investigation that, in recent weeks, found evidence of 2,000 crimes of sexual abuse of children, most of them aggravated, committed “in a classroom context”. The PJ admits, however, that the total number of crimes committed by the teacher could be much higher, preparing to expand the scope of the operation which, for now, has focused on acts carried out in the last seven years.

The teacher in question teaches in the 1st cycle at the Gonçalo Sampaio School Group, in Póvoa de Lanhoso. The oldest cases of alleged sexual abuse against its students – children aged 6 to 9, according to the PJ – date back to the 2017/18 academic year. It was at this point that the now detained teacher taught the students from whom the complaint was made. The students, now teenagers and attending Póvoa de Lanhoso Secondary School, the other school group in the municipality, told their older colleagues about the situation they experienced.

At issue are sexual comments and innuendos, but also inappropriate touching of the children he worked with, many of them in a classroom context. It was these older students who brought the situation to the attention of the secondary school management, who reported it to the PJ.

Since yesterday, PÚBLICO has been trying, unsuccessfully, to contact the management of the Gonçalo Sampaio School Group, where the detained teacher taught.

The investigation will be expanded in time and space. The teacher has been teaching in Póvoa de Lanhoso for around a decade, but previously he had worked at schools in Porto, Vila Nova de Gaia, Barcelos and Amares. “Therefore, the real extent of his criminal activity is still unknown”, says the Judiciary, in a statement, admitting that the real number of crimes committed by this teacher could be much higher than the 2000 that have so far been investigated.

“Of what has been possible to investigate so far, 2000 crimes of sexual abuse of children, most of them aggravated, and also, at least, one crime of pornography of minors”, said in a statement, on Wednesday, the PJ, which investigates the case through the Braga Criminal Investigation Department.

According to the Judiciary, searches were also carried out at the EB 1 school where the teacher in question taught, following which “some objects that may be related to the commission of the aforementioned crimes were located and seized”.