Suicide teen lived in ‘abusive environment from the day he was born’

Stylianos Constantinou, the 15-year-old boy who ended his life by suicide in 2019, “was forced to grow up in this abusive environment from the day he was born”, the Nicosia district court heard on Thursday, as the trial of 11 suspects into the circumstances surrounding his death began.

In total, 218 charges have been brought against 11 people – Constantinou’s parents and nine employees of the social welfare services department – regarding the circumstances surrounding his death.

His father faces charges related to alleged physical and psychological violence, as well as common assault and “cruel and inhumane treatment”, while his mother has been charged with failing to report incidences of violence about which she was aware – a criminal offence in and of itself.

The nine social welfare services department employees, meanwhile, face charges of neglect of duty. Two have already pled guilty.

Additionally, a police sergeant is being charged in a separate case with the dereliction of duty.

The first witness to testify was a police constable working at the police station in the Nicosia district village of Pera Chorio, who told the court that on May 28, 2010 – over nine years before Constantinou’s death – his mother had appeared at the police station and declared that she wished to divorce her husband, his father.

The constable said Constantinou’s mother had “forced her to go to his farm from morning until night, without leaving her any time to rest”, and that she had “no social interactions with her husband”.

He added that he had been told by Constantinou’s mother that she had already informed the social welfare services department of the incident, and that the department was monitoring the situation.

The complaint, he said, was registered in the police’s files as a “non-criminal case”.

Asked by the prosecution why this was the case, he said that “the police are not concerned with breakups”.

At this point, the defence lawyers representing Constantinou’s mother and father objected, saying that the testimony offered was irrelevant to the case. The prosecution countered that the testimony concerns accusations of domestic violence by Constantinou’s father, which “allegedly caused psychological harm” to the child.

“Stylianos was forced to grow up in this abusive environment from the day he was born,” the prosecution’s spokesperson said.

Judge Pavlos Agapitos said that the testimony’s value would be “decided at the end of proceedings”.

Constantinou’s father’s lawyer then asked the constable whether he had examined the veracity of his mother’s claims, and the constable said that he “did not examine the truth of any reported events”.

The lawyer then asked whether there were any accusations of domestic violence made in the statement, with the constable replying that Constantinou’s mother “had not mentioned anything of the kind”.

“She herself requested that her statement that she left her residence be recorded, and in fact, she had already informed a worker from the social welfare services department,” he said.

Then, the lawyer for one of the social welfare services department employees asked the constable if he had contacted the social worker assigned to the family.

To this, the constable said that he had raised the possibility with Constantinou’s mother, but that she had told him that she had already contacted the social worker.

After the constable’s testimony had concluded, a police sergeant, who was also working at the Pera Chorio police station at the time, took the stand.

He spoke about an earlier incident which occurred on December 19, 2007 – when Constantinou was just three years old – when his mother went to the police station and reported that her husband was beating her.

Constantinou’s mother, he said, had informed the police that her husband did not beat her in their son’s presence. He added that when informed about the possibility of initiating criminal proceedings against her husband, she said she wished not to do so.

He said that following this, he had informed the social welfare services department about the incident and marked the file as requiring no further action.

The lawyers of both of Constantinou’s parents objected again, arguing that the testimony was made in reference to an incident from 2007 and that it has “no direct connection” to the charges both face, but the court dismissed the objection.

Asked by the prosecution whether he took any further action regarding this incident, the sergeant said he had called Constantinou’s father to the police station and “made strict recommendations to him to not repeat the violent incident”, with Constantinou’s father said to have “promised that such a thing would not happen again”.

Constantinou’s father’s lawyer then asked whether a “substantive investigation” had been undertaken by the sergeant, with the sergeant replying that he had “taken all appropriate actions” and acted “in accordance with instructions” set out by his superiors.

The lawyer then asked whether the sergeant had offered the advice to Constantinou’s father simply because Constantinou’s mother wanted him to do so, and he answered in the affirmative.

He was then asked by Constantinou’s mother’s lawyer whether he could remember the “state” of his client when she visited the police station, and he said he could not.

When his testimony drew to a close, the court set the date of the next hearing for March 6.

Constantinou was found dead at his family farm on September 5, 2019.

His death had made headlines at the time, with the government of the day empowering ombudswoman Maria Stylianou Lottides to launch an investigation into the matter in September that year.

In her report, she found that both the police and the social welfare services department had failed to recognise the psychological violence directed at Constantinou by his father, as well as a pattern of violent behaviour towards his mother.

She said the social workers assigned to the case had showed “utter criminal negligence” and that as such, they may bear criminal responsibility for his death, while also saying that police officers had violated their own regulations and failed to inform the relevant government department about incidences of domestic violence.

Social workers’ trade unions had at the time rejected Lottides’ findings, saying that the workers were being unfairly blamed for Constantinou’s death and that they were overworked.

After Constantinou’s death, his two younger siblings were removed from the family home.