A former acting head of a primary school told the trial over the death of 14-year-old Stylianos on Tuesday that a Social Welfare Services officer asked to be informed when there were fresh marks on the boy’s body so that a complaint could be made, after she reported marks that were already healing.
The witness, a former assistant head of Agia Varvara Primary School identified by her initials E.N., acted as head of the school from December 2010 to March 2011, while the head teacher was absent. Stylianos was then in his first year of primary school. She said she never taught him and was not responsible for his class, but was kept informed mainly by his teacher, as well as the special education teacher and the speech therapist.
She said the boy’s carer told her he had marks on his body, and that when the carer asked him about them, he said his father had put a cigarette on him. She described the marks as round and in the process of healing.
She said she phoned the Social Welfare Services officer who was then monitoring the family, the third defendant in the case. According to the witness, the officer asked whether the marks were fresh and, when told they were healing, said she wanted to be told of any fresh marks so that a complaint could be made.
“He was a living child who was suffering,” the witness said, adding that she had expected to be told the incident would be investigated. She said she felt the child’s mental and physical endurance was being tested.
Hygiene and behaviour
She said that when she visited his class, she noticed the boy smelled bad, had blackened nails and stains on his clothes. She watched him arrive at school on several mornings and saw the same picture each time. When she raised it with his mother, the mother objected, saying she kept the child clean.
The boy was often isolated during breaks and did not play with other children, she said. She described him as the saddest child she had seen and said she never remembered seeing him smile.
According to information from his teacher and speech therapist, there were three serious incidents at the school between mid-February and early March 2011, she said. In them, the boy kicked and hit staff, threw objects and tried to leave the school. On one occasion, when his mother came to collect him, he shouted that he did not want to go home, tried to stick a syringe needle in her leg and then tried to hit her with a hammer.
She also described seeing the boy pulling his mother’s hair as she held him against her. When she asked what had happened, the mother said she did not know, but that whatever had happened was over, and later refused to explain. The witness said the mother withheld information while she was trying to win her trust so they could help the child.
The witness said she recorded the incidents and wrote to the Education Ministry asking, among other things, who was responsible.
Multidisciplinary meetings
Asked by prosecutor Elena Konstantinou about two multidisciplinary meetings she attended, the witness said the father’s violent behaviour had been raised. This included an incident in which the father hit the boy when he could not sleep because of mouth ulcers, and reports that he hit him when he misbehaved. She said the mother rejected the concerns about both hygiene and violence.
She said she had never seen the father smoke, but recalled seeing him holding a packet of cigarettes at the school one day.
She said she concluded that the boy was not doing well at home based on what his teacher told her and on the fact that he himself said he did not want to go home.
The hearing continues on Wednesday at 11am with her cross-examination by defence lawyers.
