NIn a ruling dated October 17, 2025, Judge Orlanda Marques concluded that two social security professionals did not consider the possibility of providing false statements when, in 2015, they advised the Family and Juvenile Court of Cascais that the children were at risk and should be removed from their mother’s care.
At the time, the social workers based their court statements on information from a social service worker at the school attended by one of the girls in the Oeiras municipality, who reported that the mother had shouted that the father would never see his daughters again.
The Cascais Criminal Court found that there was “no proven reason” to believe that the social workers acted out of revenge against the mother or to favor the father, asserting that “normal rules” indicate Anabela Vieira and Sandra Baptista were motivated solely by “the best interest of the child.”
The case gained notoriety after the children’s mother, whose daughters were then two and three years old, went on a hunger strike in June 2016 for over two weeks in front of the Assembly of the Republic and other institutions. She protested the December 2015 decision by the Family and Juvenile Court of Cascais to remove her daughters and grant custody to their father.
At the time of the children’s removal, the man was facing domestic violence charges, according to the October 17, 2025, ruling.
Initially, in May 2023, the two social workers were given suspended sentences by the Cascais Criminal Court for perjury, denial of justice, and malfeasance. However, in February 2024, the Lisbon Court of Appeals ordered a retrial, which resulted in the full acquittal of the defendants.
The ruling, in which the judge clarified that the process does not address the “merit of the decision” made by the professionals, is subject to appeal.
The mother regained custody of her children in 2021.
