The Leiria Court has sentenced a teacher to a suspended sentence of one year and two months for negligent homicide following the death of a student caused by the fall of a movable goalpost at a local school.
“Despite the tragedy and the irreparable pain of the student’s family and the suffering of our colleague, and without knowing the details of the investigation and the process, Fenprof must note that all the responsibility fell on the weaker party, the teacher,” stated the teachers’ union in a communiqué.
Fenprof emphasized that it was proven the teacher, at least since 2018, had requested the purchase of counterweights for the goalpost from the school management and the football academy that also used the space.
This case, according to Fenprof, left “marks on everyone involved” and “will have consequences throughout the country.”
Therefore, the teachers’ union will ensure, in the future, that whenever a teacher suspects the safety conditions of any space or equipment to be used and requests an exemption, those who are exonerated of any responsibility, the higher hierarchy and supervision, will not create obstacles to the said exemption.
The teacher was judged following the death of a 15-year-old student due to a goalpost collapse on May 25, 2021, during a physical education class with a 9th-grade class on the synthetic turf football field of the Colégio Conciliar de Maria Imaculada (CCMI) in Leiria.
“I apply a penalty below the average provided, which will be suspended for an equal period, without any probation regime. No penalty will bring David back to life, and no penalty will bring more suffering to the defendant than what he suffered that day,” remarked the judge, acknowledging the accused “was emotionally devastated” by the incident.
The court found that, despite alerting the school and the football academy about the lack of counterweights and warning the students not to hang on the goalposts, the teacher used the equipment without counterweights.
However, “alerting does not eliminate the risk, given the ages he was dealing with. On this day, he failed to ensure that the goalpost might fall on the student and cause death. It was his decision to use the goalpost that day and under those circumstances,” stated the magistrate.
“He should have acted by securing the goalpost to prevent it from falling. The omission of the duties that the defendant, as a teacher, was subject to should have foreseen the consequences. By not doing so, he significantly increased the risk of accident and consequences, as occurred,” the judge highlighted.
The director of CCMI was also initially accused by the public prosecutor of negligent homicide, but the criminal investigating judge decided not to take her to trial.
The public prosecutor’s accusation states that around 16:50 that day, one of the groups “was playing handball near” one of the goalposts.
“One of the students was positioned in the goalpost as a goalkeeper, and the other three exchanged the ball among themselves to shoot and score a goal.”
“It was at this time, and because they had just scored a goal, that they switched goalkeepers,” the report describes, noting that after this switch, the victim “ran to the goalpost” and “hung on the top bar of it.”
Instantly, the student was “thrown forward, along with the goalpost, falling to the ground, face down, with the goalpost collapsing on him, hitting him in the head area.”
Despite “immediate first aid being administered with the intervention” of the teacher and “emergency resources being activated,” the student died at 17:44 in Leiria hospital.
