Supreme Court gets tough on ‘unprecedented scourge’ of child porn and abuse

The Supreme Court has accepted the appeal of the attorney-general, who challenged a ruling for a court of first instance to release on parole a woman facing a multitude of charges related to child pornography.

The top court ruled the woman be kept in custody until the date of her trial.

The offences relate to the production, possession and dissemination of child pornography material and the peculiarity of the case lies in the fact that the material concerned image files of the woman’s underage daughters, which she allegedly produced and provided to an accomplice.

The defendant’s minor daughters, at the time the material was produced, were aged five and 15.

The woman’s trial date is set for December 1 and, meanwhile, at the request of the accusing authority, the Court has also ordered the detention of the woman’s alleged accomplice.

The Supreme Court stated in its review of its initial decision, that the defendant is facing very serious charges several of which carry a life sentence, and therefore the temptation to escape justice is great.

“We do not consider that, in the light of the above data, the personal circumstances of the Respondent and her ties to the Republic and in general the subjective factors that concerned her were such that they could act as sufficient deterrent against the risk of fleeing justice. It does not escape our attention that the Respondent originates from Greece and maintains close family ties with her country, since her mother and sister reside there, as can be seen from the report of the Welfare Office that was brought before the Court at first instance,” the statement read.

Elsewhere the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by a 72-year-old man convicted for possession and distribution of child pornography, to suspend the remainder of his sentence, due to his wife’s health condition.

The 72-year-old was found guilty and given concurrent prison sentences of 2, 2½ and 3 years, after a number of files were discovered on a computer, an external hard drive and USB stick.

The convicted man’s lawyer appealed on the emotional basis that if the remainder of his sentence were not suspended, “the next time [he saw his wife] would be in a casket under the escort of prison guards,” due to the stage of his wife’s cancer.

The Court stated in its rejection of the appeal that cases of this nature involving child victims are not only on the rise in Cyprus, but have become “an unprecedented scourge,” and added that this obliges the Court to impose, as a deterrent, particularly severe penalties in which personal circumstances are secondary and tailoring of sentencing does not have a role.

Meanwhile, in the case of a 73-year-old man convicted for sexual abuse of his two grandchildren, dating from August this year, the Court overturned his initial sentence, increasing the prison term from seven to 14 years.