Leiria Court sentences two young men to 6 and 5.5 years in prison for robberies and assaults
Leiria Court has sentenced two young men to custodial sentences for robbery and aggravated assault offences. One of them will also be expelled from the country for five years.
Young men convicted in Leiria for series of robberies and knife assaults
Leiria Court has sentenced two young men to custodial sentences for robbery and aggravated assault offences, according to Google News PT — Crime (pt), based on the judgment to which the Lusa agency had access.
One of the defendants, aged 18 and unemployed, received a single sentence of six years in prison. He was found guilty of three robbery offences — simple and aggravated — in joint commission, and of two aggravated assault offences, in sole and joint authorship. The court also imposed on him the ancillary sentence of expulsion from the country for a period of five years.
The second defendant, a 19-year-old student, was sentenced to five years and six months in prison. The judicial panel found him guilty of three robbery offences, simple and aggravated, and of one aggravated assault offence, all in joint commission.
Both convicted individuals remain under house arrest with electronic monitoring whilst awaiting the decision to become final. The court considered this measure the "only coercive measure necessary and sufficient to satisfy the high cautionary requirements", justifying it with the danger of continuation of criminal activity and flight, "in light of imminent incarceration".
Facts established as proven
The judicial panel established as proven that, in March 2025, the two defendants and an unidentified third suspect assaulted a minor pupil outside Afonso Lopes Vieira Secondary School in Leiria.
In the early morning of 16 May of the same year, during Leiria Fair, one of the defendants entered a caravan being used as a bedroom by a man and, with a knife in hand, "thrust it towards the abdomen" of the victim. The victim attempted to repel the attack, but the blade struck his hand.
On 13 June 2025, at 18:00, also in Leiria, three men who were inside a vehicle "were approached by approximately 10 individuals", among them the defendants, who surrounded the car to prevent the occupants from leaving and demanded that they hand over valuable objects. One of the convicted men assaulted two of the occupants and held a knife "to the neck and face" of one of them. The group ordered them to leave the vehicle, searched them and took various items. The two defendants and two other individuals then drove the car to another location in the city.
The two young men, residents of Leiria, were detained in November 2025 by the Public Security Police.
Special regime for young offenders rejected
The court rejected the application of the special criminal regime for young offenders — provided for defendants aged between 16 and 21 — citing "the overall gravity of the facts, the number of victims" and "the poor social and professional/educational integration" of both.
"It is no longer viable to make a favourable assessment of the prospects for these young defendants", the panel maintained, justifying the sentences with "the degree of culpability of each", classified as high in both cases, and with the requirements of general and special deterrence.
The judgment also highlighted the "great boldness and sense of impunity of the defendants", who acted "jointly with other persons, in broad daylight, in a public place, thereby causing marked public alarm and a sense of insecurity and impunity in the community".
Source: Google News PT — Crime (pt)