Preschool teachers Sami and Leah Tubias confessed and were convicted of abuse on Sunday in the Jerusalem District Court as part of a plea bargain. However, parents of children they abused in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood were anything but satisfied with the conviction.
"To our great sorrow, despite the determined opposition of the parents and the Movement for the Safety of the Young Child, the plea bargain was signed and the clauses regarding assault were removed, even though there is video documentation of terrifying instances of assault by the couple," wrote Lilly Boxman in the name of the Movement for the Safety of the Young Child and a number of parents whose children were enrolled in the Gilo preschool.
"The plea bargain is absurd and wrong and mostly does a great injustice to the parents, the children, and anyone who plans on sending their children to preschool," she wrote.
According to the final indictment, "the accused psychologically abused the children, while hitting children in the preschool from time to time in front of their friends, yelling, threatening and creating terror among the children."
The abuse, first documented on camera by Rafi Ginat in his popular Kol Botek investigative television series, included multiple incidents of physical violence. The indictment included one instance in which Leah Tubias grabbed a four-year-old boy by the arm, waved him in the air and then forcefully sat him in a chair in front of the others.[...]
A conviction is better than none.
ReplyDeleteYou never know what risks of admissibility of evidence etc or costs the prosecution is facing.
True, a conviction is better than none. But, I still understand the parents and the organization.
ReplyDelete