ST. PETERSBURG, February 10 (RIA Novosti, Anna Novak) - A former female schoolteacher has been accused of abusing elementary schoolchildren in St. Petersburg, local prosecutors said Friday.

The parents of third-grade pupils complained to the police that over the past three years the teacher had been insulting their children, forbidding them to go on walks during breaks, beating them and making them clean dishes and toilets.

The prosecutors said the teacher considered this treatment an acceptable method of raising children.

A criminal case has been opened against the teacher, following a similar incident in the Far East Primorye Territory, where a female teacher was charged with abuse after she had forced seven nine-year-old pupils to lick the floor in front of their classmates in order to clean their footprints.