A 70-year-old man has been sentenced by the court in Charleroi, Belgium, for inflicting rape and indecent assault on his granddaughter when she was a teenager.
Grand father of the young girl disputed the facts of which she was accused until the end : for him, these accusations of his granddaughter were the fruit of revenge after a family dispute between his son and his daughter-in-law. But the comments he made definitely convinced the court.
“Some pedophiles are not aggressors if they have committed the acts only once” according to the defendant
The girl hadn’t told anyone, until this discussion with her boyfriend’s brother while they were abroad. The deputy prosecutor recounted the moment of the confession before the Charleroi court “She reacted when she was told that her nono was a nice person. She responded by saying ‘if you knew’, before denouncing the acts of morals of which she was the victim for two years”. In his defense, his grandfather explained that“One morning I woke up with my hand on her thigh. She was in my bed, because she used to watch TV late when she slept at home. I thought it was my wife and when I realized I jumped out of bed.” he said.
If the prosecutor requested against him a sentence of two years with a suspended probation, the court sentenced the defendant more firmly to three years’ imprisonment, with a probationary suspension of five years, for rape and indecent assault on his granddaughter between 2014 and 2016. Indeed, during the investigation, the victim’s grandfather had made very tendentious remarks that the public prosecutor and the court did not fail to raise. “The defendant notably made certain questioning statements, suggesting a form of attraction towards young girls. He said in particular that ‘some pedophiles are not aggressors if they have only committed the facts once’ or ‘if a child likes it, that’s his problem.'” pointed the finger at the prosecutor. It is undoubtedly all of these elements that led to his conviction.