WITH TWO middle aged men being caught indecently exposing themselves outside Limassol schools in the past month, police have been pushed to step up patrols, a police spokesman confirmed yesterday.
Two men, aged 52 and 41, were arrested on court orders, charged with indecent exposure and released. One of the men was caught engaging in a solo sexual act outside a nursery school in Limassol, while the other was caught outside a private school for children between the ages of 11 and 16.
These two cases have been confirmed by the police. But a parent from one of the affected schools insists he caught a third man, in his early twenties, engaging in the same activity, right outside his 11-year-old daughter’s school, though this has not been confirmed by the police.
But the alarmed father says he knows what he saw.
“I witnessed it with my own eyes and I saw his face,” he told the Cyprus Mail. “It was right outside the school with about 150 kids running around. My main concern is to let parents know.”
“These people used to hide away in their homes and get their kicks out of the internet. Now they are sitting in broad daylight, outside schools, surrounded by hundreds of children and – pardon my expression, but we are all adults here – w***ing in broad daylight. The next step, they’ll start kidnapping children.”
The concerned dad said he was disappointed with the school as for over a month now, it refused to issue a memo to inform all the school’s parents on what had happened.
The school’s headmaster told the Cyprus Mail on Thursday, “I can’t accuse someone of doing something without having solid evidence. I followed the case through with the police, I called them three times but they didn’t call us back to tell us what was going on so I didn’t know how to act. We reported the matter to the police; therefore we did what we had to do.”
But that same day, Police Spokesman Michalis Katsounotos said that as soon as the two cases came to his attention through the media, he ordered an investigation into the way police had handled the matter.
“There was indeed a case reported by the school in question,” he confirmed. “The man – a 52-year-old married man with three children – was arrested, charged and released, so the police did what they had to do,” said Katsounotos. “As soon as I saw the media reports, I ordered an immediate investigation into what had happened to see if the police in Limassol had indeed failed to do their jobs. But the suspects were arrested and charged.”
And a Polemidia police officer, who investigated the second case outside a nursery school in his area, said contrary to media reports, as soon as his station was notified about the incident, a patrol car was sent straight to the scene.
“Members of the public called us and told us they had immobilised this pervert outside the nursery school, as they had caught him in the act inside his car,” he said. “We immediately sent a patrol car; the man was arrested and charged.”
Following these latest developments, the school’s headmaster yesterday informed the paper that he had sent a memo to all parents, warning them about the incidents.
“We have circulated a memo to all children, while emails have also been sent to the parents,” he said.
