Preventive measures for psychologist suspected of child abuse

The Loures Court ordered this Monday the preventive detention of the psychologist suspected of the crimes of sexual abuse and pornography , in Alenquer, against a minor girl, committed for more than two years.

After attending the first judicial interrogation, the Criminal Investigation judge left the psychologist awaiting trial in preventive detention and prohibited from contacting the victim and all the teenagers he met at school and who attend the Brain Institute, a clinic in Alenquer where he worked, the court informed the Lusa news agency.

The coercive measures were decided taking into account that “the facts attributed by the Public Prosecutor's Office to the defendant were strongly indicted, including the indicated criminal offences of a sexual nature, and having concluded that it was necessary to prevent the dangers (…) of continuing criminal activity, disrupting the investigation and disturbing public peace in the place where the facts occurred”.

According to the Judicial Police (PJ), in 2021, when she was 16 years old, the victim went to a clinic in the Alenquer region for psychological support after developing depression and anxiety following sexual abuse suffered in childhood.

"The psychologist would take advantage of the minor's particularly vulnerable condition, then aged 16, to, in his office, initiate sexual acts with her and exchange digital pornography and child sexual abuse content," the PJ explained.

The crimes occurred “over more than two years,” between 2022 and the summer of this year, when “the psychologist also tried to entice the young woman into further abusive acts.”

Last August, the victim, now 18, contacted the PJ, which had already investigated his previous case.

The psychologist is suspected of several crimes of sexual abuse of a dependent minor or a particularly vulnerable minor and child pornography, all of which are aggravated.