«The minor expert has suffered vertical harassment by some of her teachers, which has caused a situation of acute stress that has led to Anorexia Nervosa Disorder. “She has suffered a serious musculoskeletal disorder from which the patient has taken more than a year to partially recover, presenting partial incapacity for school and activities of daily living during this period.” These are the devastating conclusions that The psychiatrist and expert in Legal and Forensic Medicine José Cabrera has extracted after examining Mónica, a 16-year-old minor who, allegedly, suffered harassment from her teachers two years ago, when she was a student at the British Council of Pozuelo de Alarcón. For this reason, The girl’s family has filed a civil lawsuit against the British Council Foundation delegation in Spain and four teachers, including the center’s director. The lawsuit was admitted for processing last week by the Court of First Instance and Instruction Number 3 of Pozuelo. The plaintiff claims 35,489.02 euros “in compensation for the damages and losses that the minor has suffered as a result of the irregular – and clearly negligent – actions of the defendant educational center and its teachers towards her”, as stated in the statement of claim. Specifically, it requests compensation of 22,575 euros for the musculoskeletal physical damage and psychological suffering derived from anorexia nervosa, and another 12,913 euros for the persistent or chronic adjustment disorder.
The events date back to 2022, when Mónica was only 13 years old. The minor informed her teachers of a very serious episode of bullying suffered by one of her best friends. However, as her mother relates, the response from the center was not what was expected, since both the teachers she went to and the head of studies at the center urged the girl to look the other way. «As my daughter refused to ignore the humiliation suffered by her friend, she began to be the victim of a campaign of harassment and demolition by the center. They even threatened her, saying things like “maybe this school is not for you” or “we could file a case against you for harassment and you won’t be able to study at any school in England.” In addition, she received worse grades and was even expelled twice. She has always been a good student, with excellent behavior and record, so this situation and “The pressure led her to stop eating and sleeping.”laments his mother. In May of that year, she was admitted to the Day Unit of the Quirón Pozuelo Hospital with a muscle mass of 16% and bone decalcification after losing more than 9 kilos. The situation reached such an extreme that even he feared for his lifeand Orfidal became part of her daily life during the two months she was hospitalized.
The lawsuit now admitted for processing denounces a «discriminatory and humiliating attitude used by the co-defendants in order to force the minor to leave school, but not before subjecting her to a degree of suffering that caused her serious physical and psychological damage.
The family is now resorting to civil proceedings after the Justice Department closed the criminal case without having carried out a single procedure. The reason was that the judge The person in charge of the investigation “missed” the deadline to extend the investigation, which was paralyzed on numerous occasions due to the strike of civil servants and lawyers last year. The family then presented an appeal to the Provincial Court of Madrid to reopen the process, which was rejected not due to lack of evidence, but because the magistrates in charge of studying the appeal argued that, after the maximum period or its extensions had elapsed, the The instructor must inevitably issue the conclusion order, since to acquire the status of defendants the defendants must “be heard within the stipulated procedural deadlines, so, since the investigation time has expired, the taking of statements from them is not appropriate.” ». However, in the resolution order, paradoxically, The court recognizes the damage that the administrative malfunction caused to the complainants and invited them to demand responsibility for it.
The family also presented before the General Council of the Judiciary a complaint for “the neglect and inactivity of the judicial body headed by the magistrate, who, with his actions, abandoned a minor and society, generating absolute helplessness for the victim, to whom he has not even bothered to listen. The judge alleged that the strikes affected his work, but gave no explanation as to why he did not issue the order for the investigation to continue.
For your partthe British Council, through a statement, points out that “the well-being and protection of our students are and have always been our priority. They are inalienable principles for the British School and, as a consequence, Our policy towards bullying is zero tolerance. Any concern for the well-being of our students, or possible case, even if it is not likely to affect the personal and emotional stability of any of our students, “It is always investigated following our internal procedures, extremely carefully and preserving, above all, the privacy of the minor.”