Tyroleans in court

Buttock grabbing is also taboo during carnival time

(Bild: thinkstockphotos.de)

Two Tyroleans were each sentenced to a fine at Innsbruck provincial court for assaulting and resisting civil police officers on the fringes of a carnival event.

"Yes, that's how it was, yes that's how it was, yes that's how the old knights were!" True to this motto, two locals dressed up as knights and went to a carnival in the Tyrolean Oberland in February.

And apparently overdid it: The first defendant (48) had hit his 19-year-old female victim on the buttocks with his hand and also pinched her there, as well as accusing and slandering a plainclothes policeman of the same act.

The trial continued at the Innsbruck Regional Court.

(Bild: Christof Birbaumer)

The brother also got involved
This was followed by an altercation with the victim's friend, and a police officer was also injured during the subsequent official action. The latter also happened because the brother (57) of the first defendant got involved.

The evidence is too thin for defamation.

Der Richter in der Urteilsbegründung

No evidence for defamation
The judge only found an acquittal for defamation. "The evidence is too thin here," he said in the grounds for the verdict. However, there was no doubt in his mind as to whether the sexual harassment had taken place. There was also no dispute that resistance to state authority had taken place.

Fines imposed
The police officers questioned testified that they had clearly pointed out their function to the first defendant. "It is therefore impossible that he did not know who he was dealing with," said the judge.

He imposed a fine of 1,200 euros each for the heavily intoxicated "knights", half of which was conditional.