The Charleroi Criminal Court sentenced GM on Wednesday morning to 3 years in prison with a probationary reprieve of 5 years. The defendant, in his seventies, was prosecuted for rape and indecent assault between 2014 and 2016 on his teenage granddaughter. The latter disputed the prejudices. The public prosecutor had requested a two-year prison sentence, with a suspended probation, against the grandfather.
While on holiday abroad, the defendant’s granddaughter disclosed her grandfather’s actions to her boyfriend’s younger brother. “She reacted when we told her that her nono was a nice person. She replied by saying ‘if you knew’, before denouncing the acts of morals of which she was the victim for two years”had specified the substitute Vervaeren.
The defendant disputed the prevention, while evoking a scene that occurred during the offending period. “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 confided.
According to GM, revenge following a family dispute between his son and daughter-in-law was behind the accusations made by the victim. A sentence of 2 years in prison, without opposing a probationary sentence given the slowness of the investigation, was required against the septuagenarian. “The defendant notably made certain questioning statements, suggesting a form of attraction towards young girls. He notably said that ‘some pedophiles are not aggressors if they have only committed the facts once ‘ or ‘if a child likes it, that’s his problem.'”
Me Jean-Philippe Mayence, for the defense, had pleaded an acquittal for the benefit of the doubt.