Domestic Homicide Review Final Report

By: António Castanho

This report concerns the review of a domestic violence homicide situation that was the subject of case No. 2892 / 15.9JAPRT of the Comarca of Porto Este, whose final decision resulted from a judgment of the Court of Appeal of Porto, 22.2.2017.

In this case, B, a male, aged 60, was convicted of qualified homicide [articles 131 and 132, paragraphs 1 and 2 b), e) and i) Criminal Code] and attempted qualified homicide (art. 22, 23, 73, 131, 132, paragraphs 1 and 2 (a), (c), (e) and (h) Criminal Code) and sentenced to 23 years and 10 months’ imprisonment.

• The events occurred on September 27, 2015.

• The victim of the murder was his wife - M who was 58 years old.

• The victim of the attempted murder was the father of the attacker - J, aged 87.

The report includes:

• a) The presentation of as much information as is known about the incident, the behaviour patterns of the perpetrator, the factors that influenced him, as well as the responses and support provided to the victims and the perpetrator; and

• b) Analysis of the above with the aim of extracting lessons from this case so that changes are made to reduce the risk of further homicides.

Agency contact and involvement with the victims and perpetrator were considered from 2010 and included justice, police and health.

The review process began on 04/17/2017; the preliminary report was drawn up on 9/1/2017; the review meetings were convened on 9/9/2017, 27/9 and 10/25/2017.

The Domestic Homicide Review Team (EARHVD) was composed of its permanent members plus a non- permanent member representing the Republican National Guard (Territorial Command of Porto), the police force that had jurisdiction in the area in which the events occurred.

Case no1/2017-AC