Nicosia, Cyprus. A nursery school teacher told the Nicosia district court on Thursday that Stylianos Constantinou displayed violent and self-destructive behaviour before the age of five and that she believed it reflected violence in his home environment. Stylianos died by suicide in September 2019 at the age of 14.
Teacher recounts incidents at nursery school
The witness said Stylianos attended her class during the 2009-10 school year and that she became deeply concerned about his behaviour from his first days at school.
She told the court that before he had turned five, he brought a knife into the classroom, threatened other children and then turned it on her.
She said she reacted immediately and took the knife from him before he had realised the severity of what he had done. She told the court that he appeared to be treating it as a game, but described it as a particularly dangerous incident.
Behaviour described as aggressive and self-destructive
The teacher also recalled an occasion when Stylianos climbed onto the roof of a sandpit and refused to come down despite repeated requests from teachers.
She said that on other occasions he hung from classroom curtains and aggressively pushed desks towards classmates.
The witness described Stylianos as a very sweet and cute child who became a completely different child when he got cross.
Concerns about home environment
The teacher told the court she was under the strong impression that his behaviour reflected what he was experiencing in his family environment.
She said he brought shouting and intense reactions to school every day and described him as very aggressive at times.
According to the teacher, Stylianos was dangerous for the other children in the school and for himself.
Information from psychologists
The witness said she had been informed by educational psychologists that the mother’s husband was violent and that police had already been notified about alleged abuse and child protection concerns.
She also told the court that it appeared the boy’s mother struggled to leave the relationship because she was financially dependent on her husband.