Today will be a crucial day for the health of 3-year-old Angelos after the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother and her partner in Heraklion, as the testing process begins, so that doctors can see if the 3-year-old boy's brain responds to stimuli.
Based on protocol, these necessary tests will last several hours and will be conducted at specific time intervals.
Once the tests are completed, there will be a more accurate assessment of the child's future.
However, as intensivists, neurosurgeons and the commander of PAGNIS himself have already stated, his condition remains extremely critical and it is very difficult to improve it.
"So far we have not had any positive reaction for which to be optimistic," the commander and deputy commander of PAGNI have stated, as the intracranial pressure remains elevated and the medications have not worked as the doctors would like.
The apologies of the mother and her partner
Wanting to lighten their position, the mother of 3-year-old Angelos and her partner blame each other for the horrific torture he suffered.
Before the investigator, the 26-year-old claimed that the 44-year-old was beating Angelos with the swing, while the stepfather blamed the mother, claiming that she had never hit the child. The defendants were remanded in custody and fled from the Heraklion courts due to the crowd that had gathered with the intention of lynching them.
The mother's indifference
The 26-year-old's apology demonstrates her indifference to the horrific experiences of the 3-year-old. After categorically denying that she hit the three-year-old boy, the mother then unflinchingly described the moments when her partner hit the child in front of her with a stick from his crib without her doing anything to prevent it.
"After a month (of their acquaintance), he began to abuse the child, he would hit him with the wooden swing he had, he would hit him or in his hands, this started in late November and early December. He would hit him because he was doing mischief and he wouldn't let him be with me all the time. The child was used to me going to the bathroom and being next to me because I didn't have someone to hold him, and this bothered him, he said it wasn't right for this child. He would hit his hand with the wooden swing, he would hit the bottom of his foot, this happened all the time.
The first time I spoke to him in anger, I told him that if he did it again, we would act differently at the police station. The next day he hit him on the bottom of his foot with the stick again, he said, that's what my forgiven mother did so that the children would sit well. The third time I told him that I would ask my parents for money to get up and leave. I called my father and he told me to think about it again, has something happened? But I couldn't talk because he was also in front. I called my father on my cell phone and told him to leave. I told my dad that he was treating the child badly and I asked him for money to leave the house to go to the police. He hadn't locked me out, but he had told me not to leave and to leave the dogs. I didn't have keys to go out and come back, meaning if I left to go to the police to report him, I wouldn't be able to come back."
Since, as she says, if she reported him, she would not be able to return home, she preferred to sit idly by and watch her child being tortured daily.
"I was in front when the child was hitting him, I would take the stick from him and hug the child. The first time I threw the stick out into the yard, he would take it again. Then his daughter threw it out into the yard. I would talk to him but he would never listen. I called my father again but he would tell me that things would get better. I would tell him that they were getting worse. I couldn't tell him exactly what had happened. (…) Throughout all this I was afraid to speak because I was afraid that he would hurt me too. He had not restrained me, he had never hit me, nor had he threatened to kill me, but I was afraid to speak."
Referring to the day the child was taken to the hospital, the minor's mother denies any involvement:
"On the last day, on the 26th, I woke up normally with the child. I got up, washed him, cleaned him up and my (partner) asked me for coffee. I went to get coffee not even a minute away from the kiosk because he drinks coffee like a dog. I come home and see the child on the couch with his eyes averted. The child was on his back on the couch, the (partner) was with a little girl next to him and I asked him and he told me that he heard voices and came. I heard voices from the (partner), I went inside I could hear from the front door, I could hear him saying "Angel, Angel", I went inside crying to see my child like that. I took the little one's hand and the (partner) told me you go away, he inhaled, he blew into his mouth, he gave him a slap. "The child at one point made an "aah" and "mom," then nothing else. Then the ambulance came. His fingers on his hand were swollen and blackened from the beating. I was screaming, asking what happened, and he (the partner) told me that the child went to get up, lost consciousness, and hit the table."
Angelos' mother claimed that she had "hit him on his baby bed. I hit the child on his baby bed." "I hit him because he was going and touching the sockets, the wires," she said.
The birth of Angelos and the relationship with his father
"I gave birth on 20-1-2022, I was in a relationship with the child's father at the time. We lived at his house in Athens in Perissos until 20 days old, along with his mother and his other three siblings. He was 20 years old at the time, now he is 23. He was beating me and I took the child and left. I went to my father in Oropos, I filed a complaint, they made a recommendation for him, then he tried to find me. He would call me, send messages, etc. I gave him a chance and when we went there, the child was one year old and he was beating the child. Then I filed a complaint against him, nothing happened. He had stayed there, he did not proceed further," the 26-year-old said in her apology.
Meeting the 44-year-old
"After all this time, I met the gentleman (her partner's name), a friend introduced him to me. Her child had come to Oropos, we talked on a video call. She said to me, 'Do you want to come down and live with us?' The other girl said to me, 'Why don't you do something with him?' This went on for two or three weeks. I told her that I couldn't come down and bring my child to a stranger. He didn't know how to write, we talked via camera, he told me to come down and meet him. I was thinking about it, thinking about it again for five days. I made the decision to come down. I took it hard, but I made it. I was thinking about it when I was on the boat, I was thinking about where I was going, should I do it or not? I arrive in Heraklion and my co-defendant came with his daughter. We went to his house and hugged and kissed the child, his daughter. "For a month, the end of October, everything was normal. I was at home, he was working, he said he was a freelancer. I was with the child. The child had gotten used to being with me all this time, he would come with me until the child got used to the space. The house had rooms upstairs. I said to myself, do I care about the dogs or my child? I never walked the dogs, most of the time I would take the little one with me to go upstairs to the park," he said.
"The first time he hit him with a stick"
"In the last few days before the incident with the child, this (her partner's name) was sick. I went out on the day he was at work. We had a key, I locked the door and went out, not everyone had their own key, there was only one. After I talked to my dad, I told him that I wanted to leave. The first time he beat him with a stick in his hands. He had a problem with his genitals. He was having difficulty, he needed some time to pee. He (the partner) didn't accept that. I told him to leave the child alone, it's my problem. He had seen him when I was changing him, he had seen that he had this problem. When I first came and just before this whole incident happened, he had seen it. He knew about the problem with his genitals," the mother testified.
"He had never burned cigarettes on him, I don't smoke"
"In December, he would constantly make him sit on the carpet. I would give him his toys to play with, feed him toast, an egg, give him milk, at noon his food with (partner's name's) money. When he mistreated him, I would yell at him, telling him, the same thing again, again? I had hit him because he went and touched the sockets, the cables, I had only hit him in the playpen. He would come wherever I went, he would yell at him, I would tell him why you don't let him come near me, I would sit down to play with him and he would yell at me, I wouldn't listen to him, I would sit and play, the whole time I was playing with him he would talk, move his hands. I would go to the bathroom, tell him to play and mom would come. I would hear him from above shouting at him why aren't you playing? Because he wouldn't move his hands but would keep looking at a toy. I heard the voices, I asked the little one if something happened, he said no, mom, everything is fine.
(…) I had seen the child's feet in December, he hadn't fallen down the stairs. He had opened the drawer in the room and it fell on his foot, then he put on the sock. (…) He was pushing him to pee. He came and pinched it. The child wasn't burned by a cigarette, he had touched it to his penis, I took the lighter and threw it away. He told me that it wasn't lit. The child didn't react. He had never burned cigarettes on him, I don't smoke, he never burned it. In any case, I have never burned the child with a cigarette, nor did I see him burn it himself. (…) The scratch on the child's back was from the basin that he put him in. The same day he couldn't urinate and he burned his penis with the lighter, and he had burned his foot underneath, then he put him in the basin. "No one hit him with a bat or anything," he testified.
The mother "was jealous that the child was so attached to me"
For his part, the 44-year-old, wanting to lighten his position before the investigator, claimed that he had never hit the little boy and that he was afraid to denounce his 26-year-old partner and the child's mother.
"I want Angelos to get well. To go out into the world and be scolded if I'm to blame, I'm not afraid of being scolded. I knew his mom was abusing him, I'm innocent. I saw and didn't do anything. I believe I made a mistake by not reporting what was happening. I found myself where I am, that's what I was afraid of. Instead of filming a video, I should have reported it," he said, according to information from protothema.gr.
The 44-year-old claimed, among other things, in his defense that he is innocent, that he has not done or would do anything to harm the child. He explained how he met the 26-year-old woman through Facebook, when she decided to move to Crete with her child to live with him, while he claims that the mother was jealous of the relationship the 44-year-old had with her child.
"Go away, Christos is mine, she told him, she was jealous that the child was so attached to me," the accused states characteristically, adding that he told her that he was a child and she shouldn't be jealous. "From there on, the fights started. After two months, just before Christmas, she was having sex with the child. She told him, 'No, Angel, no, Angel,'" he adds.
He hit the Angel with a stick.
Speaking about the abuse of the child by his partner, the accused claims that in December he had seen the 26-year-old hitting the child with a stick that she had taken from his daughter's crib. "On December 16, she hit him once on the lips and made the child bleed. I was in front, she hit him with her hand and he bled a little. The second time I did not see her hit him, I saw his hands beaten. She did not hit him in the doghouse, he dozed off on the bed. Eleftheria loved dogs very much, she hugged them, she loved them. She beat her child. We got engaged because she told me that she would change," he says, among other things, in his apology.
Regarding the wound the child had on his leg, the 44-year-old said that it was not a result of a physical assault on him, but that little Angelos hit it when he opened the drawer of the bedside table. "Then his mom and I gave him first aid, putting ice on him so that it wouldn't swell and a bandage on his leg. At that time, his leg looked like it was slightly scratched, there was no blood. All Angelos did was say "ah", I turned around, went inside later and saw that the drawer had crushed him. If I remember correctly, they called her to come upstairs to see what happened to Angelos. I don't remember if she went up or if I brought him down. She was stepping on his leg and showed us that it wasn't too serious. I believe that he then got an infection and made a wound. "I had seen it and told her not to put a sock on him to let his leg get some air," he said at another point, adding that they didn't take him to the doctor.
"He didn't show me that he was abusing the child, even when I saw his wounds, the bruises he had, she told me when I asked her that he fell, that he was clumsy and fell and hit himself. In the future he would change, that's what Eleftheria told me. He told me once and I said to her, 'change.' I have my daughter who is 14 years old and I have never touched her, we have signed a custody agreement with her mother. I was afraid to react to what I was seeing. I was afraid that the ball would get me too if I reported him, I was afraid to go to the police. I didn't want to hurt Eleftheria, that's why I didn't file an anonymous complaint. I'm timid and stupid and I thought that I didn't react at that moment because I'm indecisive. I wanted to protect the child along with Eleftheria. He loved me too much and I didn't want to lose Angelos' love, she told me that she would change, I didn't see her change and we got to where we are. It happened where we got to and Angelos is in the hospital. The burns on his legs weren't from a cigarette, he had a blister on his hand like a deaf person, he hit his finger, this blister popped, Angelos did it like that, we put the nail clippers in and cut it and pulled it out. I don't know how the burns got on the child, I don't remember, I'll fill it in when I remember," he claimed.
The marks on the child's body are "due to carelessness"
At another point in his apology, the 44-year-old admits that all the marks that little Angelos has on his body were not only caused by the child's carelessness but also by their own actions, which he attributes to a lack of awareness and not to his brutal abuse. "Some of them came from our carelessness, when we were not more aware. His mother did it to him too," he says.
"I saw him faint"
Regarding the last day that the child was taken to the hospital in a miserable condition and the two defendants were arrested, the 44-year-old claims that "on the last day his mother had gone to get two bags of coffee from the supermarket, it was not even 100 meters above my house. Because it was Sunday, his mother went from the grocery store, the kiosk was closed and went to the convenience store. This happened at 9.00:8.15. The child was sitting on his mat, I was sitting on the couch. I got up, his mother had thrown herself into the convenience store, he thought I would leave too, Angelos got up, he didn't feel well. I heard the "duk" and turned back and saw him faint. I told him before he got up to wait for me to go to the kitchen. The child that day looked exhausted as if he had just woken up. He seemed to have woken up early, he was slow to get out of bed, at XNUMX he got up, it seemed to me as if he hadn't slept. Not as if he had been injured. The previous night the child had slept with Eleftheria, like every night in my mother's bed, I was sleeping downstairs in the living room, I went upstairs at twelve o'clock, I took a look at Eleftheria's and Angelos' room and went to my daughter's room, closed the door and fell asleep.
"On weekends I slept in my daughter's bed, who was missing. The child was fine the last time I saw her. I hadn't looked at the wound on her back, that had happened two weeks ago or more. I had turned my back to go to the kitchen, I turned as soon as I heard the "duk" on the table in the corner, there I found the child, on the corner of the table. She had eaten her in the mouth but she didn't bleed. I don't remember if she fainted and knocked. The child was sitting on the carpet. She was sitting, she got up, I told her I'm going to the kitchen in two minutes, don't get up, I always told her not to get up, don't knock. The child got up and what happened happened. He knocked. I turned right around, he was faint, I put him in the tap, I poured water on him. I realized that he hit his head, in my panic I took him to the tap. I was shouting for help, "Help my Angel", a neighbor came and gave the child first aid, then the ambulance came. I can't explain what happened. I don't know what the hematoma you tell me he had on the left side of his head came from, I left it normal on Saturday and on Sunday he fainted. I don't remember what Eleftheria told me when she came, the child was unconscious", he claimed.
He denied that cigarettes were extinguished on the child's body.
The defendant denies in his defense that cigarettes were extinguished on the child's body and that he used drugs, while he claims that there was a camera in the house that was not working, however it is possible that there are recorded files on some memory cards.
"The camera wasn't working under the TV, it has a memory card and I want it to be turned on, maybe it recorded something because the light was on. I recorded the video on my cell phone and the photos for about a month, so I can have them as evidence for the police if necessary and not to humiliate the child," he says. "I want the cell phone to be turned on, I want to talk to you so you can see the cell phone. The child went to the hospital by ambulance, I couldn't get in, his mother went with him. (..) So the child ended up in the hospital, I followed him on the motorbike, they called the police and for a moment I didn't understand how the whole scene had happened and they grabbed me, I didn't speak at all. I want Angelos to get well," he notes.
Source: protothema.gr
