Physical Education teacher will have underestimated the need to use counterweights in school goals. A 15-year-old teenager was fatally hit by the bars.
“He was aware of the inevitability of using counterweights”, but “he decided to use the beacons”. This is what the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) judge claimed about a 2021 case in which a student died after being hit by a school’s goal posts, which fell because it was not secured by counterweights.
The accident took place in Cruz da Areia, at Colégio Conciliar Maria Imaculada, and the MP is now asking the Leiria Court for a prison sentence of at least 3 years for the Physical Education teacher for negligent homicide, who decided to use the equipment even without the necessary counterweights for its stability. He also asks for a suspended sentence for the same period.
“If the safety conditions were not met”, the defendant “could choose not to use the equipment”, said the judge, cited by . “David died during a class due to the use of unsafe equipment. Nothing will fix this”, concludes the MP.
“The goal did not fall in the air, but because someone perched on it, and that has to weigh in on the decision”, argues, on the other hand, the defense lawyer. A student may have perched on the goal, which fell.
“The teacher cannot disrespect security requirements, therefore accompanied by the MP’s request for conviction”, pointed out the lawyer for the teenager’s family, who was 15 years old at the time of his death.
