Top court rejects man’s appeal over sexual abuse sentence

By Stavros Nikolaou

The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal to overturn the conviction of a man found guilty of sexually abusing a woman when she was 10 years old.

The accused was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the seven offences committed between 1986-1988.

In his appeal, the man claimed that the initial decision of the court did not consider the time which had elapsed since the commission of the crime, nor his inability to call as witnesses in court persons who had since died.

The court ruled that the accused’s excuse that the memory of past events after 29 years was weakened was unsupported.

The court of the first instance had considered the testimony of the complainant as credible while rejecting the excuses of the accused based on the convincing findings that emerged from the testimony of the woman, in all seven charges he was tried for.

The appeal was directed against the accuracy of the conviction decision and the interim decision of the Paphos district court on 19/4/2019.

The court justified its decision to reject the appeal, stating that the delay in the victim coming forward to report such cases is very common and fully understood.