Teacher insists he reported marks on Stylianos’ body to headmaster

The third-grade teacher of Stylianos Constantinou told the Nicosia district court on Wednesday that he informed the headmaster regarding marks on the boy’s body which had been attributed to his father. The witness said it was his duty to inform a member of the school’s violence prevention team and that the headmaster was one. He said there were indications of beatings and that the child had said they came from his father. The prosecution cited an education ministry manual that requires school staff to report cases when told a child is experiencing domestic violence. The incident occurred when Stylianos was in second grade, when the boy complained of back pain during class, whereupon the school matron and speech therapist called the teacher to see the marks. Stylianos took his own life at the age of 14, with the trial examining whether family or state service negligence contributed to his death. On Monday the same teacher described the boy as a gentle child who saved school food for his siblings and resembled “a saintly recluse”. He said Stylianos arrived with dirty clothes and an unpleasant odour, and that the school tried to support him. The defence also questioned him regarding statements made in his main testimony that were absent from his testimony in 2020, which the witness said he had testified unprepared and emotionally charged. On the decision to end the boy’s school escort, he said it was collective and that he had reservations. He said he was told the matter would be reviewed if problems arose, and rejected the suggestion that he had agreed the child no longer needed support. He said the canteen head had agreed with the mother that Stylianos would receive food and that she would pay for it, and that the child also received free meals through a ministry programme. He had no personal knowledge that there was no food at the home, as he had not visited the family, and the information came from what the child told his escort. He said the boy’s clothes smelled strongly of farm animals and ruled out mould as the cause. “I don’t think clean clothes can absorb such a bad smell just by being next to dirty clothes,” he said. He said he or his wife bought clothes for the boy but kept no receipts.