LISBON (AFP) - A primary school principal in Portugal faced possible kidnap charges after he kept a class of 11-year-olds locked up for over six hours in an effort to identify the author of a wallet theft.



The president of the parents' association, Celia Roda, told the Jornal de Noticias that the association was considering pressing kidnap charges.

The children at the school in Amor, 130 kilometres (80 miles) northwest of Lisbon, were not allowed to go to the bathroom or have lunch while locked up in their classroom, the newspaper said Tuesday.

Principal Ricardo Cruz declined to apologize for the incident, telling the newspaper that he decided to take action because the victim of the theft was a child from a needy family.

"When I went to the class and said that nobody could leave the room until the author of the theft confessed, I was convinced that things would be resolved quickly," he said.

"While I was trying to resolve the situation, I didn't realize that the hours were passing," he added.

The wallet was found with all its contents in a school bathroom.source

strange, im from portugal and i didnt heard of this.

that guy is just plain stupid but i guess this kind of things are getting normal in here.

anyway i tought that my country was the only one that wasnt going crazy. now i have my doubts .

Perhaps the principal should have asked the child to re-trace his steps before holding the kids hostage for six hours.

A tad extreme...

Well at least his intentions were right, since the missing wallet was from a child who is disadvantaged, but as Girty said, maybe getting thd kid to retace his steps would have been easier instead of immediately accussing thd kids of stealing.

The wrong thing to do, for the right reasons, done under wrong context.

It was good for him to seek out the thief and get the kids wallet back, wrong of him to accuse children of theft before considering other options such as leaving it somewhere, and wrong to detail these obviously young children for so long without at least notifying parents etc.