Welfare officers ‘failed to act’ on child’s suicide warning

A criminal investigator testified on Monday before the Nicosia district court that social welfare officers failed to follow prescribed procedures in the case of 14-year-old Stylianos Constantinou, who died by suicide in September 2019.

Appearing as a prosecution witness, Andreas Andreou presented findings from the criminal investigation into the boy’s death, telling the court that entries in the child’s welfare file showed that mandatory protocols were not applied in several incidents involving him.

Central to Monday’s testimony was an entry dated May 13, 2019, less than four months before Stylianos died, in which a welfare officer recorded that the boy had attempted suicide two days earlier.

Andreou told the court that this information had been passed to welfare officers by the boy’s mother, and that police had also been informed.

However, he said, the actions that followed “do not appear to have led to the immediate provision of specialised psychological or psychiatric support to the minor, something that should have been considered”.

Andreou presented interrogatory statements taken from the accused welfare officers during the investigation, along with copies of the service’s file on Stylianos’ family.

The file contained records of domestic violence incidents that had concerned police, including one in which the boy’s father, also a defendant, allegedly beat Stylianos after blaming him for the death of a farm animal.

Welfare officers’ own observations recorded in the file described the family home as being in a state of squalor, with conditions of “inadequate hygiene”.

The court heard that a referral of Stylianos to the welfare services by the educational psychology service dated to when he was attending preschool and that a multidisciplinary meeting had been held in 2011 to address the difficulties he was facing.

Andreou said these documents were shown to the coordinating officer of the case, as “she should have been aware of them”.

Two Interior ministry manuals on handling domestic violence incidents were submitted as evidence.

Andreou explained that these ministerial documents set out specific procedures officers are required to follow when violence or danger is reported.

He told the court it was deemed important to present them to the accused because “in some incidents involving Stylianos, the prescribed procedures do not appear to have been applied”.

Stylianos’ special education file from the education ministry was also presented, containing assessments and correspondence showing that both educational services and welfare officers were aware of the difficulties the child faced.

The case involves 218 charges against 11 defendants, Stylianos’ parents and nine welfare employees.

The father faces charges including physical and psychological abuse and “cruel and inhumane treatment”, while the boy’s mother is charged with failing to report domestic abuse.

The welfare officers face charges of dereliction of duty, with two having already pleaded guilty, while a police sergeant is being tried separately.

An independent investigation carried out by the ombudswoman following the boy’s death found that both police and welfare services had failed to recognise the psychological violence directed at Stylianos, and that social workers had shown “utter criminal negligence”.

Welfare trade unions rejected those findings at the time, arguing staff were overworked and unfairly blamed.

Stylianos was found dead at the family farm on September 5, 2019 and his two younger siblings were removed from the family home after his death.

Proceedings are set to continue April 30.