Abuse || Hundreds more children are thought to have been involved in the new sex-abuse case that is shocking the nation.
The 34-year-old Physical Education teacher is currently in police custody, facing multiple charges of sexually abusing young boys.
In the case drawn up against him, the public prosecutor describes the man as a “sexual predator who found victims everywhere he worked”.
According to media reports, his arrest followed a painstaking police investigation that stretches back to 1987.
Already over 100 youngsters have been interviewed, with only nine prepared to press charges. These constitute the 435 allegations against him.
But Polícia Judiciária are reported to believe “many more children” are involved. Whether or not they come forward remains to be seen. Writes Correio da Manhã: “Fear and shame” have stopped many from pressing charges, and seen them hiding the abuse from their families.
“Throughout the investigation, the authorities interviewed children for ‘future memory’ to avoid the need for them to go to court. This way, the children described the situations of abuse and revealed how the teacher involved them in a game of seduction.”
Accusations centre on the teacher’s time as a football coach in Marco de Canaveses, near Porto, and occasions when he worked at Escola Eurico Gonçalves in Lisbon and at a centre for handicapped children in Madeira.
The profile that police built up is of “a man who could not control his impulses”. He “had amorous relationships with children, maintaining them for some time” and only “leaving” the children “when they grew up”, around the age of 12.
“The youngsters were reeled in with all sorts of promises,” added the paper. Their teacher even told them he could get them started in the world of football.
It was a promise like this that prompted one mother to let her son spend a few days alone in a hotel in Lisbon with the teacher.
As the case is due to come to court, CM reveals that José Carlos Veríssimo has denied all 435 allegations against him, claiming the youngsters “confused his manifestations of affection with sex acts”.
One child alone has been the source of 130 charges, writes CM. The sports teacher is reported to have had contact with the boy for two years.
