Maria João, Daniel, Joana, Vanessa. They were children when the family they lived with stole their lives – Observer



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Poiares reiterates that the lesson to be learned is that “The family is the worst place in the world: where all the violence, all the abuse, all the homicides occur. It is in the family context that a child dies at the hands of people who should have an obligation and care “, He says. So when he learned from the news that Valentina had disappeared, many other cases occurred to him. Even Maddie, the four-year-old British girl who disappeared from the apartment where she spent her holidays with her parents in the village of Luz in the Algarve, whose case came to have her parents as defendants, suspected of murdering the boy, but who ended up on file. and without an explanation of what happened

In Valentina’s case, the father can claim to have dealt with an accident. But for Carlos Poiares, a negligent homicide can never end with “transporting the child to camouflage him a few kilometers from home,” he considers. “The most normal thing would be to call 112,” he says.

On the other hand, the main suspect in Valentina’s death did not bury the body, hid it only in the foliage. “There was no intention to cover up the crime, either because he thought it would be discovered or he did not want it to be forgotten,” he analyzes.

But if Valentina is nine years old and was already a girl who expressed herself and could even say words that could hurt her father and stepmother, as Carlos Poiares points out, there are cases of younger children murdered at the hands of their parents who do not even know I still speak.

As the case of the baby of only three months that his father stabbed to death in Linda-a-Velha, Oeiras, in April 2015. The Prosecutor’s Office concluded that he did it in retaliation against his former partner, the baby’s mother, who would have He said he wanted to end the relationship between them, after discovering that the suspect was still drinking alcohol.

“The victim was, that day, in charge of the accused, who carried out the events maintaining telephone contact with the baby’s mother. After stabbing the victim and leaving him at home like this, he opened the gas burners of the water heater and the stove in the house and left, ”the prosecution reports.

A year later, João Barata, 34, was sentenced to 25 years in prison, in the Cascais Court, by a jury court, made up of four previously selected citizens and four alternates. The accused always claimed not to remember having committed the crime.

Carlos Poiares remembers that in all these cases another question arises: that of mental health. The criminologist argues that all Family and Juvenile Courts, when deciding who to assign custody of the child, must make psychological examinations of the father, mother and children before making any decision. And, going back to Valentina’s case, and in a moment of confinement, when PJ himself has registered an increase in assassination attempts and crimes against people, the psychological state of each one can worsen. “We will continue to have children in the custody of people who may be at risk. The pandemic, the fears and the confinement, an unexpected situation. Suddenly, people who are used to going to work see their children 24 hours a day in a limited space and look at each other. The hug and the emotional lack of control begin and the deviant behavior begins ”, he explains. “There may already be many children psychologically and physically injured,” he insists.

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