Cláudia Simões given eight-year suspended sentence; police officer gets three years suspended
In a ruling that will send tongues wagging for the rest of the day, Cláudia Simões – a woman whose battered face was held up as testimony to police brutality – has been handed an eight year jail term, suspended, for biting a police officer.
The policeman, Carlos Canha, has been given a three year jail term, also suspended, for two crimes of ‘offences to physical integrity’, and two of kidnapping.
This all refers to events in January 2020 when Cláudia Simões – a cook by profession – got involved in an argument between passengers and the driver of a Vimeca bus, over the fact that her daughter, who was eight at the time, had forgotten her bus pass.
When they arrived at their destination in Amadora (close to Lisbon), the driver decided to call the police. “After a few tense moments, officer Carlos Canha decided to immobilise Cláudia Simões” because she “refused to be identified”.
Carlos Canha was charged at the time with three offences of aggravated assault, three offences of aggravated kidnapping, one offence of aggravated insult and one offence of abuse of power, while fellow police officers João Gouveia and Fernando Rodrigues were charged with one offence of abuse of power for failing to act to prevent their colleague’s alleged assaults.
Cláudia Simões was charged with a crime of offence against qualified integrity.
As it turned out, Carlos Canha was ‘absolved’ of the assault/ kidnapping charges in relation to Cláudia Simões, but convicted on the other two assault/ kidnapping charges, as well as being found guilty of ‘aggravated insult’ and abuse of power.
The two other police agents were absolved of their charges, with the court ruling that they had not acted outside the law in the exercise of their duties.
This was a case presented through the media as an incident of police brutality. Two of the people witnessing the skirmish with Cláudia Simões ended up being arrested and taken to the local police station, hence agent Canha’s other charges.
During the trial, Simões said that she believes she would have died had she not bitten agent Canha, three times on the arm.
She told the court that even today, if she sees a policeman in the street, she is frightened. As for her daughter, Ms Simões said the child blames herself for everything that happened (as she ‘forgot her bus pass’) and has needed therapy.
Source material: LUSA/ SIC
