Child Abuse, Teacher Sentenced to One Year and Four Months

He allegedly hit children between the ages of 3 and 5, punishing them on a chair in a closet for hours, after yanking them and calling them names like “idiot” and “you’re a little mouse that poops.”

Continuous punishments and chastisements, which took place in a nursery school in Fabriano (Ancona), which led to a trial teacher Neapolitan nursery school student sentenced today at the Court of Ancona to one year and four months of imprisonment (sentence suspended by the benefits of probation) for child abuse. The investigation was triggered in 2016 by a complaint from a parent who had seen her son abuse the stuffed toys he had at home.

The dolls symbolized him at the nursery and the child, who imitated the teacher also speaking with a Neapolitan accent, scolded them: "Don't do it again, do you understand? Go sit there, you're grounded". The father had turned to the police and the prosecutor Ruggiero Dicuonzo had opened a file against the teacher.

In the nursery school “Anna Malfaiera” cameras had been installed that had filmed the abuse. Other parents had then reported the abuse reported by the children even if the teacher, a 61-year-old originally from the province of Naples, defended by the lawyer Monica Clementi of the Magistrelli firm, has always denied the accusations and will now appeal. In her class she followed about twenty children.

"The class was lively but I never locked the children in the closet - the teacher had said during the trial, which lasted 4 years - there wasn't even a closet, there was a sink to wash your hands. It eats away at me, I've been grounded for years". After the police investigations, a suspension from teaching was issued which is still in effect.

The teacher, after a long experience as a janitor, had won a competition for a teacher and had moved from Campania to the Marche in 2015. Her assignment was supposed to be annual. Judge Francesca Pizii today ordered her to pay compensation, jointly with the Ministry of Education, to the three families of three children who have joined the civil action. The amount will be defined in the civil court.