The victim’s mother is very active on social media, where she shows text messages and physical evidence of the attacks. He says the school treated the case as a “joke”.
The Souselo School Group, in Cinfãesopened an internal investigation to determine the situation in which a student at the Fonte Coberta school lost the tips of two fingersrevealed its director to the Lusa agency this Friday.
“The management was aware of the situation (which occurred on Monday) and opened an internal investigation to investigate the facts”, stated Carlos Silveira, adding that “the insurance policies were activated the very next day”.
The situation was reported by Nivia Estevam, who on the social network Instagram describes herself, in her page biography, as “mother of the nine-year-old child who had her fingertips amputated at school in Portugal”, in the municipality of Cinfães, district of Viseu.
“Two children closed the door on my son’s fingers” when he went to the bathroom, preventing him “from leaving and asking for help”, said Nivia Estevam in one of the several publications in which she denounces the case, adding that the boy “He lost a lot of blood and had to crawl under the door with his fingers already amputated.”.
The 9-year-old boy underwent three hours of surgery at Hospital de São João, in Porto, and will remain “with physical and psychological consequences”he stated, asking for legal help to face the moment he is experiencing.
There were already other complaints, the school treated the case as a “joke”
According to Nivia Estevam, Monday’s episode happened after she had already made other complaints regarding “hair pulling, kicking and hanging”and “no action was taken by the school”.
“José arrived yesterday with this around his neck, and after asking many times what it was, he told me it was the boy [nome ocultado]parents have to draw this child’s attention, as I will not tolerate any type of aggression. My son was very well educated not to disrespect anyone, and that is the least parents can do”, reads an alleged message sent by the mother to a teacher, via Whatsapp, “5 days before the amputation”, reads Nivia’s publications.
The mother of the child in question also took a photograph of the discharge note that the child received after hospitalization, which reads that there was an “amputation of the distal portion” in three points of the left hand and that the mother “brought a piece of 1 of the fingers”.
The mother criticized the fact that, on Monday, the school did not activate the PSPnot having explained to him the seriousness of the situation (which he only realized when he was already in the ambulance) and that the employees had cleaned the “entire place” of the incident.
“The school is treating this like a joke gone wrong”he lamented.
School explains itself
Carlos Silveira declined to provide further clarification on what happened on Monday, as the internal investigation was ongoing, but assured that “help was called promptly” and the school developed appropriate procedures.
“There is no PSP in Cinfães, only GNR. When INEM (National Institute of Medical Emergency) is called, if it considers it to be a serious situation, it automatically contacts the security forces”, he explained.
In another text message shared by the mother, a school official writes that “there wasn’t that much blood” and that the mother “is nervous and angry”, but that she needs to “calm down, because it was an incident that could have happened to any boy and no one intended to hurt, they were playing and it went wrong…”
Mother of accused student declared innocence
In another publication by the child’s mother, we read another text message allegedly sent by the mother of the alleged perpetrator of the attack, according to the complainant.
“Before you are judging the acts or supposed acts of other children who really know both versions, if it is sad to see a child hurt, it is also sad to see a child crying because they accuse him of what he says he did not do, and it is not because the other boy is hurt that he has a truer word than the others, so before you judge, remember that there are children on both sides and all stories have two sides before talking you have to know what happened”, reads the screenshot on Instagram.
15 lawyers will help mother
Nivia Estevam’s request for help was heard and a group of 15 lawyers have already made themselves available to handle the process.
“We will proceed with the complaint to the Public Ministry and we will deal with the administrative process, the school’s civil liability in terms of surveillance and the civil process”, lawyer Catarina Zuccaro revealed to Lusa.
Regarding the criminal issue, lawyers will study what can be done, because “those involved are minors”, but they will have to be held responsible, he added.
“We are 15 lawyers who will work. Each group will have a part: criminal, administrative and civil”, said Catarina Zuccaro.
