Three years in prison

Child abuser (64) sees himself as a victim

The accused pensioner was represented in Eisenstadt by lawyer Ina-Christin Stiglitz.

(Bild: HS, Krone KREATIV)

Trial in Eisenstadt: A man from northern Burgenland (64) abused two seven-year-old girls, one of them his granddaughter, because they allegedly blackmailed him. The man was sentenced - not legally binding - to three years in prison.

He had looked after the seven-year-old neighbor's child as a "babysitter". The girl is said to have caught the 64-year-old watching a porn movie "purely by chance". "When I went into the living room, she was kneeling half-naked on the sofa, wearing only her underpants. She now wants to do what the woman and the man in the movie did," said the man, who was brought out of custody. According to his statements, he vehemently denied it. "But then she threatened me that - if there was no sex - she would tell everyone that I was watching porn. So I took my pants off and then she ..."

"She threatened me"
A few days later, the child told his seven-year-old granddaughter about it. "She then said to me that she wanted to do the same thing, with a woman and a man. But I didn't want that. When she threatened me that she would reveal what I had done with her friend, I took off my pants and then ..."

Doris Halper-Praunias, the chairwoman of the senate of lay judges, was not the only one who seemed to lose her temper at these harrowing descriptions by the man from northern Burgenland. "You are a poor man! So you were blackmailed into sexual acts by two seven-year-old girls? You're not going to tell me that now, are you?"

"This must remain a secret"
The abuse came to light because the neighbor's child confided in a teacher days later. The school management informed the mother, who immediately filed a complaint with the police. When asked why she hadn't told her mother about the terrible experience straight away, the child told the detective: "Because he said it had to stay a secret!"

Back in the courtroom in Eisenstadt. "I hope you realize that what you did there is a criminal offence?" asks the judge. "Well, uh, now I know!" says the 64-year-old, who is sentenced to three years in prison. The previously innocent man does not comment on the sentence, so it is not legally binding. He is taken back to his detention cell.