Teacher fined for attacking pupil

A teacher has been fined €850 by the Limassol district court, for causing actual bodily harm to a 10-year-old pupil she attacked during class in 2018, it emerged on Wednesday.

According to Phileleftheros, the accused teacher was found guilty last week of the charge, with proceedings on Tuesday set for commutation of the sentence. The court ruled that she must pay a penalty of €850 in the category of causing actual bodily harm, as well as €420 in administrative costs.

During a plea for mitigation of the sentence, the teacher’s lawyer said that a long time had passed, five years, since the incident.

She also said that the teacher’s anxiety about the outcome of the case could be considered a form of extrajudicial punishment, adding that she had a clean criminal record.

The lawyer also stressed the effects of a prison sentence would have on her client’s career.

The incident took place in February 2018 at a public primary school in the west of Limassol, while the hearings for the case began in October 2022, with the accused not admitting any charges.

Thinking that the 10-year-old had asked a classmate to move during the lesson, the teacher pulled his chair, causing him to fall to the ground and injure himself.

She then threw the chair across the classroom and then began to pull the student by the arm, dragging him out of the room.

After the incident, the student was taken to the Limassol hospital’s A&E department, where he was found to have mild pain on his right ribs, abrasions on his right shoulder and arm, and three abrasions on the lower part of his left hand.