Tires prison in Portugal has been plagued by safety issues, including inmates deliberately starting fires and attacks on guards
A 41-year-old mother accused of abandoning her two young sons is being detained in a ‘harsh’ women’s prison where inmates deliberately set fires.
Marine Rousseau and her partner Marc Ballabriga, 55, are facing charges of endangerment and abandonment after a five-year-old boy and his three-year-old brother were discovered wandering along a country road in Monte Novo do Sul, an isolated region between Comporta and Alcácer do Sal in Portugal.
According to officials, the youngsters were left blindfolded in woodland near a disused bus stop, with only a few pieces of fruit and a water bottle in their possession. A local baker discovered the children and immediately contacted police, who are placing them with a foster family until they can be returned to France.
The couple were apprehended by the Portuguese National Guard (GNR) on Thursday, while sitting ‘calmly’ at a café terrace near the pilgrimage town of Fátima, roughly 120 miles from where the youngsters were discovered.
On Saturday, Rousseau was heard singing to herself as she was escorted into court. An investigating judge ordered her remand to the Tires women’s prison, situated approximately 12 miles west of Lisbon, reports the Mirror.
The infamous multi-security facility holds several hundred inmates, including both remand prisoners and sentenced criminals, and deals with many of Portugal’s most serious criminal matters. It also has a track record of safety problems, which have put both prisoners and staff at risk.
Last year, an inmate deliberately set fire to her cell which led to five female officers being hospitalised for smoke inhalation. The prisoner in question had recently been moved to Tires following her involvement in previous attacks at another institution.
During that same period, Portuguese broadcaster RTP reported two suspected drug overdoses at the facility, one of which led to an inmate’s death. The chief prison officer was sacked following these reports, with an investigation launched.
Trade unions also documented more than a dozen assaults on guards by prisoners in 2024. Additional past incidents at the facility include a major Covid outbreak in 2020 that infected over 120 inmates, alongside prisoner deaths in their cells during 2018 and 2021.
Rousseau will remain at Tires until her next court hearing. The 41 year old, who separated from the boys’ father several years previously, markets herself online as a “sexologist” who can assist “all people who have suffered trauma to regain serenity and sexual satisfaction”.
Ballabriga is a former police officer who received a conviction in 2010 for harassment and domestic violence against his daughter’s mother, according to French media. He is currently detained at Setúbal Prison.