The Nicosia district court on Friday passed suspended prison sentences for two of 11 defendants charged with dereliction of duty in the trial into the suicide of 14-year-old Stylianos Constantinou in September 2019, saying their actions were “clearly impermissible and condemnable”.

The two are the fifth and seventh defendants, who had changed their pleas to guilty – a social services officer who admitted to three charges and a welfare services officer who admitted to one.

The court sentenced the first to ten months in prison for each of the three charges, with sentences being concurrent, and the second to eight months in prison for the single charge faced. It also took into consideration mitigating factors.

The first defendant had been assigned to protect and care for Stylianos and was aware of the abuse and neglect the boy was experiencing. The officer was found to have deliberately neglected to carry out assigned duties, by not protecting the child who was being beat up by his father, not taking measures to protect the child as the father slaughtered animals in front of him on his farm, and not removing Stylianos from his family home.

The second defendant was found guilty of showing conscious indifference for Stylianos’ case and deliberately neglecting to examine the living conditions of the family and take measures to protect the boy.

“The public expects that public officers who hold such key positions and indeed positions of trust, will provide active protection to vulnerable individuals. Otherwise the trust of the public is shaken, the state institutions are undermined and the functioning of the state itself is undermined,” the court said in its ruling.

It furthermore said “vulnerable individuals are exposed to dangers that could have been prevented with timely and active handling by social welfare services officers, who have a duty to do so.”

In this case, the defendants “were not only indifferent, but they deliberately did not fulfill their duties”, the court added.

The court said the charges were serious at it were, but became more so due to the fact that “the fate and protection of an underaged vulnerable person was in their hands and they did not do what they should have done”.

Their actions, it added, were “clearly impermissible and condemnable”.

Proceedings will continue on May 19 at 11am with the cross examination of criminal investigator Andreas Andreou, who had been appointed in January 2020 along with Modestos Poyiadji to investigate the suicide.