Court hears school official describe abuse of 14-year-old Stylianos Constantinou before his 2019 suicide
A special education officer from the Ayia Varvara primary school told the court on Monday about beatings, animal cruelty and repeated appeals for help involving Stylianos Constantinou, who died by suicide in 2019 aged 14.
Nicosia, Cyprus. A special education officer at the Ayia Varvara primary school testified in court on Monday about physical and psychological violence suffered by Stylianos Constantinou, who died by suicide in 2019 at the age of 14. She described him as “was the child who grew sadder as the school day came to a close”.
Accounts of violence at home
The witness said the boy had experienced beatings and had been exposed to cruelty to animals. She also said the school had made repeated attempts to obtain help for him.
According to her testimony, Stylianos told his speech therapist he was unable to sit because his father had whipped him with a belt the previous night. The witness said the marks of the beatings were visible on his body.
She said the boy had also reported that his father struck his mother in the abdomen while she was pregnant, forced him to work in the barn and strangled lambs while he watched.
Handwritten notes submitted as evidence
The witness’s handwritten notes were submitted to the court as evidence. They include information relayed by the boy’s teacher, who said the father hit Stylianos on the soles of his feet so that no marks would remain.
The 2013 complaint
The witness said that in 2013 the headmaster informed her that the father had beaten Stylianos and that the boy had left home. She contacted the social welfare services, and a social worker arrived at the school within half an hour.
The witness and the social worker then went to the police together and lodged a complaint against the father.
Stylianos did not go home that night and appeared at school the following day. The witness said school was the “only place he felt safe”.
The mother’s position
The witness said the mother rejected all of the boy’s accounts of violence and maintained that the situation at home had improved. She called Stylianos a mythomaniac and claimed that those behind the complaints were trying to break up her family.
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