Court in sthrn Russia sentences teacher who pressed student into suicide

YESSENTUKI, Stavropol territory, March 24 (Itar-Tass) - District court
in the town of Budyonnovsk, Russia's southern Stavropol territory, on
Tuesday issued a sentence to twelve months in a penal colony settlement to
a mathematics teacher who drove one of her students into committing
suicide.
Assistant Judge Sergei Kashnikov told Itar-Tass the 60-year-old
teacher Valentina Neumyvaikina had been found guilty of causing her
student Ivan Chernikov to commit suicide.
The judges drew a conclusion on the teacher's guilt on the basis of a
note left by Ivan, a letter where he specified accusations against her,
the results of forensic studies conducted at the Moscow-based Vladimir
Serbsky Institute of Social and Forensic Psychiatry, and eyewitnesses'
evidence.
"The materials show that the teacher really took the liberty to insult
the student and displayed a type of conduct inadmissible for pedagogy,"
Sergei Kashnikov said.
The teacher refused to admit any guilt on her part.
January 30, 2008, the 15-year-old student of Grade 9 Ivan Chernikov
committed suicide by taking a lethal doze of medicines.
In a farewell message recorded on the mobile phone, he said he had
been compelled to sign an end to his own life by the teacher who had
persistently insulted and repressed him.
In February 2008, the Investigations Committee of the Aleksandrovskoye
district where the suicide took place instituted a criminal case.
Valentina Neumyvaikina's fellow-teachers made statements saying their
colleague, who had an instruction record of 36 years was not guilty.
To ensure unbiased judging, the case was shifted for hearings to the
court of the Budyonovsk district, which is located at a big enough
distance from Aleksandrovskoye.