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Shocking video sends nursery teacher to jail

It is footage that will send shivers down the spine of any parent who leaves their child at nursery - and has sent a Spanish teaching assistant to jail.

Published: 30 April 2015 11:23 CEST

Shocking video sends nursery teacher to jail

The Spanish teaching assistant was sent to prison for four years for mistreating children. Screen grab: elperiodico.com

A Spanish teacher at the Annunciata School in Gironella has been sentenced to four years in jail after hidden cameras installed by school management caught her mistreating children in her care.

In one episode in the video published by Catalan News Agency she is seen pinning a toddler to the floor and force feeding the child.

In another disturbing clip, the teacher is seen forcing a child head first into a sleeping bag and sitting on the opening while she nonchalantly chats to a fellow teacher.

The children were both around one year old.

The staff member, named as Esther S. B, had on November 14^th 2011, "violently thrown down a child under one year old and pinned them face up by their arms and legs and forced him to swallow food," according to the court ruling.

Just a few days later on November 18^th the video caught the second episode of abuse when a child was trapped in a sleeping bag.

The teaching assistant was sentenced on Wednesday to four years in prison by a judge at Criminal Court No. 1 of Manresa (Barcelona).

She was also ordered to pay €90,000 ($100,000) in compensation to be split between the two families of the children who were mistreated.

A fellow teacher, the one who sat watching and chatting with her colleague as she trapped the tot in the sleeping bag, was also sentenced after being found guilty of acting as an accomplice because she failed to stop the abuse or to report it.

She was given a suspended sentence of 11 months in prison.

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FC Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas poses after being awarded thewomen's Ballon d'Or award.

FC Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas poses after being awarded thewomen's Ballon d'Or award. Photo: FRANCK FIFE / AFP

Putellas is the third winner of the prize, following in the footsteps of Ada Hegerberg, who won the inaugural women’s Ballon d’Or in 2018, and United States World Cup star Megan Rapinoe, winner in 2019.

Putellas captained Barcelona to victory in this year’s Champions League, scoring a penalty in the final as her side hammered Chelsea 4-0 in Gothenburg.

She also won a Spanish league and cup double with Barca, the club she joined as a teenager in 2012, and helped her country qualify for the upcoming Women’s Euro in England.

Her Barcelona and Spain teammate Jennifer Hermoso finished second in the voting, with Sam Kerr of Chelsea and Australia coming in third.

It completes an awards double for Putellas, who in August was named player of the year by European football’s governing body UEFA.

But it’s also a huge win for Spain as it’s the first time in 61 years that a Spanish footballer – male or female – is crowned the world’s best footballer of the year, and only the second time in history a Spaniard wins the Ballon d’Or.

Former Spanish midfielder Luis Suárez (not the ex Liverpool and Barça player now at Atlético) was the only Spanish-born footballer to win the award in 1960 while at Inter Milan. Argentinian-born Alfredo Di Stefano, the Real Madrid star who took up Spanish citizenship, also won it in 1959.

Who is Alexia Putellas?

Alexia Putellas grew up dreaming of playing for Barcelona and after clinching the treble of league, cup and Champions League last season, her status as a women’s footballing icon was underlined as she claimed the Ballon d’Or on Monday.

Unlike the men’s side, Barca’s women swept the board last term with the 27-year-old, who wears “Alexia” on the back of her shirt, at the forefront, months before Lionel Messi’s emotional departure.

Attacker Putellas, who turns 28 in February, spent her childhood less than an hour’s car journey from the Camp Nou and she made her first trip to the ground from her hometown of Mollet del Valles, for the Barcelona derby on January 6, 2000.

Barcelona's Spanish midfielder Alexia Putellas (R) vies with VfL Wolfsburg's German defender Kathrin Hendrich — Putellas plays as a striker for Barça and Spain. GABRIEL BOUYS / POOL / AFP

Exactly 21 years later she became the first woman in the modern era to score in the stadium, against Espanyol. Her name was engraved in the club’s history from that day forward, but her story started much earlier.

She started playing the sport in school, against boys.

“My mum had enough of me coming home with bruises on my legs, so she signed me up at a club so that I stopped playing during break-time,” Putellas said last year.

So, with her parent’s insistence, she joined Sabadell before being signed by Barca’s academy.

“That’s where things got serious… But you couldn’t envisage, with all one’s power, to make a living from football,” she said.

After less than a year with “her” outfit, she moved across town to Espanyol and made her first-team debut in 2010 before losing to Barca in the final of the Copa de la Reina.

She then headed south for a season at Valencia-based club Levante before returning “home” in July 2012, signing for Barcelona just two months after her father’s death.

In her first term there she helped Barca win the league and cup double, winning the award for player of the match in the final of the latter competition.

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