Charges were brought against the former Budapest school principal and mayor of Fidesz for abusing children

Five years after the child abuse, the Budapest XIII. Against the former director of the District Primary School of Music and Physical Education, who this week was still working as an educator in a dormitory in the capital, 24.hu learned.

About Zsolt Putnoki, about the former Fidesz mayor of Újkenéz, teachers and parents told our newspaper in 2018 that he hit several children, including a little girl, and that the abuses were always suffered by Roma children. The last similar incident happened on April 13, 2018, when Putnoki was alone with a 13-year-old Roma boy in the director’s office. In the room, the conflict turned violent, and the principal reported the student. However, later, presumably based on the teachers’ reports, an investigation was also ordered against the director for endangering a minor. One of the teachers heard the child shouting: “Don’t hurt me, Mr. Principal!” In the end, the investigation authority quickly terminated the proceedings against the child, and charges were brought against the director in May of this year.

Bettina Owl In his reply to 24.hu, the press spokesperson wrote that the Budapest V. and XIII. District Attorney’s Office

He brought charges against a teacher for the crime of endangering a minor in the 7th degree.

According to the indictment, in the 2017/2018 academic year, the defendant used humiliating disciplinary methods and corporal punishment against seven students – aged between 10 and 15 at the time – in the 2017/2018 academic year. In several cases, he slapped and punched minors in the face, and punished them by pulling their hair and sideburns.

We know that the indictment also states that the children had to kneel with their hands up, and one of the students was allowed to leave after 45 minutes when he couldn’t take it anymore.

The indictment does not mention the Roma origin of the children, but it does mention that the principal treated the children’s behavior in an abusive manner.

According to the prosecutor’s office, the former director “jeopardized the healthy moral development of the minor victims with his serious breaches of duty”. In the execution of the district prosecutor’s office, he proposed the imposition of a suspended sentence of imprisonment against the accused, and also proposed that the court ban him for a fixed period from all occupations and activities in the framework of which he would carry out the education, supervision, care and medical treatment of children under the age of 18, as well as other powers with them. or would be in a relationship of influence.

The Közép-Pest Teaching District Center stood by Putnoki for months, even when the police had already started investigating him for endangering a minor, and at a public hearing, several teachers told the public that the director intimidated the teachers, humiliated and abused the students. Putnoki finally left the primary school by mutual agreement in July 2018, but left a serious mess behind. By then, more than half of the teachers had left the school, at the end of the school year 24 teachers terminated their employment because they did not want to work with Putnoki any longer, and the students were also transferred to another school by their parents.

Abuse was also a topic in parliament, where Bence of Rétvár the state secretary emphasized that no complaints were received by the school district center, and no specifics were ever given in the matter. According to him, the teachers did not talk about similar problems even when the school district director met with six teachers. He also said there was a wide-ranging investigation into the case, but did not say what it found.

Putnoki quickly found a new job: in August 2018, he already worked as a kindergarten teacher at the Budapest Unified Secondary School College, which is also maintained by the Közép-Pest Tankerületi Központ. We tried to reach the head of the dormitory by phone after he did not answer our written questions earlier.

We received the information from the secretariat that the director

he has no capacity to answer.

They didn’t give Zsolt Putnoki contact information either, so we couldn’t talk to him, but we did ask questions György Házlinger, to the director of the Közép-Pest Education Center. Házlinger’s name may be familiar from the fact that last October he personally delivered a written warning to three teachers of the Szent István High School after the teachers organized a demonstration for the fired teachers of the Kölcsey Ferenc High School. The school district leader threatened to fire the school’s teachers.

We asked Házlinger about the educator:

• do you know about the charges?
• How long do you intend to employ Zsolt Putnoki?
• Don’t you think it was a wrong decision to hire a teacher to the college who you are facing now? charged with the crime of endangering a minor?

After the school district director wrote in his reply that “in the cited 2018 case, the prosecutor’s office dropped the suspicion, there was no conviction, so there was no legal obstacle to the application”, so we contacted the Chief Prosecutor’s Office of the Capital City again.

Bettina Bagoly clarified the contradiction as she wrote:

following the questioning of the suspect in the initial phase of the investigation, the district prosecutor’s office actually upheld the suspect’s complaint, so the man’s legal status as a suspect ceased. As a result of the conducted investigation, he was again, well-founded, suspected in 2022, and then, based on the evidence obtained during the investigation, the district prosecutor’s office brought charges.

After we drew the attention of the head of the school district to the fact that charges had been brought against Putnoki a few weeks ago, Házlinger informed us that “in connection with the current events, the investigation of the case is underway, the administrator will exempt him from work for the duration of the investigation.”

We asked the head of the school district if we understood correctly that he was informed about the indictment from us, and then the educator was suspended from work, but we did not get any answers to these questions.