Famalicão: Moral and theater teacher sentenced to eight years in prison for sexual abuse of 15 students

The Court of Guimarães sentenced the Moral teacher and theater director to eight years in prison for 62 crimes of sexual abuse of dependent minors, committed on 15 students at a school in Vila Nova de Famalicão.

At the time of the events, which occurred between 2014 and 2018, the defendant was a teacher of Moral Education and Catholic Religion at Escola Secundária Camilo Castelo Branco, in Famalicão, district of Braga, and a theater teacher, being accused of 87 crimes of sexual abuse of minors , who were between 14 and 17 years old.

When reading the ruling, which the defendant, claiming illness, and his lawyer did not attend, the presiding judge said that 62 of the 87 crimes had been proven in the trial, completely rejecting the “cabala” thesis defended by the professor, currently aged 54, adding that he was “a master in the art of manipulation and dissimulation”.

The Court of Guimarães also applied to Fernando Silvestre the additional penalty of prohibition from exercising public or private functions that involve contact with minors, for 10 years.

According to the panel of judges, in the trial, which took place behind closed doors, the victims presented “absolutely credible, convincing and even moving” testimonies.

“With no signs of vengeful purposes, despite, on the one hand, the undisguised discomfort and hurt that the facts reported (still) caused them and, on the other, the admiration and esteem they confessed to feeling for the defendant and which they explain that, throughout and until the complaint, they devalued their behavior and attitudes which, therefore, they all interpreted as ‘normal’ in the theater and without malice on the part of their author”, highlighted the presiding judge.

For the court, “from what little the defendant understood to say in the statement [escrita] who read [em julgamento]it is removed that physical contact – which admitted to exist because it had to exist – was necessary and justified by the training and preparation process of the actors/actresses”.

“It turns out that it was proven that: the classes/rehearsals took place with the lights off, relaxing background music and the door closed; the stage work was carried out in pairs, normally with eyes closed; and the defendant was part of the stage pairing with female students , successively and rotating”, explained the judge.

For the group of judges, it was proven that “this entire method implemented by the defendant had no other purpose than to create an environment conducive to and enhancing physical contact which, progressively, evolved from touching the back and belly” to intimate areas, ” in a notorious crescendo” in which the director was “testing” the offended.

“The manipulative and dissimulating power of the defendant was exuberantly demonstrated”, stressed the judge, adding that, “for years, protected by a prestige he gained inside and outside the school community, with all his charisma, he attracted ‘O Andaime’ [companhia de teatro] dozens of students, usually the best, who felt happy and fulfilled there”, and that all the students interviewed, including the offended ones, “talk about the defendant as a fantastic teacher and ‘O Andaime’ as a wonderful place”.

The Court understands that “the need for the defendant’s resocialization is very high because, despite having no criminal record, he did not, at any time, show adequate critical judgment regarding the sexual contacts he had with the offended women”.

“Which he never admitted (although he considered the ‘touches’ in theater to be necessary), for which he never demonstrated regret or remorse, in an unaltered posture of contempt for the victims, without a trace of empathy and totally incapable of reciprocating the affection and admiration that they, despite everything, they still devote themselves to him”, he highlights.

The Court says that, at the time of the events, the defendant “was an Education and Moral and theater teacher for several years (teaching for over 25 years), father of a young adult, married to a teacher, assuming normal responsibilities, until with public impact (for which he was even honored by the Municipality)”.