Public Prosecutor's Office accuses four former employees of mistreatment at daycare center

The Public Prosecutor's Office (MP) has filed charges against four education assistants, former employees of the Casa do Povo de Rabo de Peixe, in the Azores, for allegedly committing a total of 44 crimes of child abuse.

According to a statement published on the website of the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Azores, consulted this Tuesday by the Lusa news agency, the MP of the Department of Investigation and Criminal Action of the Azores filed “charges against four defendants, education assistants , former employees of the Casa do Povo de Rabo de Peixe, charging them respectively with the practice of 16, 17, 8 and 3 crimes of child abuse”.

“ The events occurred from 2015 onwards , with a greater incidence in 2024 and the first half of 2025, inside the Child Support Center Nursery belonging to the Casa do Povo, in the parish of Rabo de Peixe, municipality of Ribeira Grande, where the defendants worked”, he said.

According to the note, based on the accusation, “the acts were committed against several children under his responsibility”, aged between 1 and 3 years old.

The investigation was led by the Ribeira Grande section, on the island of São Miguel, of the Azores Criminal Investigation Department.

On September 9, it was announced that the management of the Casa de Povo de Rabo de Peixe fired four employees accused of mistreating children at the Child Support Center.

The employees received a notice of guilt in July and were dismissed the following month for just cause , having appealed the decision to the Ponta Delgada Judicial Court, reported the daily Açoriano Oriental.

On May 30, this newspaper revealed that the Casa do Povo de Rabo de Peixe had filed a criminal complaint against four employees for alleged mistreatment of the children they cared for, aged between 1 and 3.

On July 12, the Azores Social Security said it would send the MP the following week the report of the inspection of the Rabo de Peixe daycare center, where the four employees were being investigated for alleged child abuse, the president of the Azores Social Security Institute (ISSA), Eduardo Nicolau, told Lusa news agency at the time.

The parents and the community of Rabo de Peixe, meanwhile, promoted a petition in July, which collected 2,661 signatures , addressed to the president of the Regional Government, the management of the Casa do Povo de Rabo de Peixe and the Parish Council of Rabo de Peixe, which called for the “immediate suspension of the four employees targeted in the criminal complaint” while “the process and investigation carried out by the Public Prosecutor's Office” were underway.

The document considered it “unacceptable that, in the face of such a serious accusation — and presented by the employer itself — the employee(s) continue to perform their duties or have contact with minors.”