2023-11-08 13:05:00
A Styrian man was convicted of rape at the Graz Regional Criminal Court on Wednesday. In May 2023, he is said to have sneaked into a patient’s room at night during an inpatient stay at LKH II, South Location in Graz and assaulted her. The 46-year-old said he might not remember the crime because of his alcohol consumption. According to the report, he was sane. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
The Styrian, who had been addicted to alcohol since the age of 19, had just been released from LKH II following an eleven-day inpatient stay to treat his addiction when he picked up the bottle once more on the same day. The police found him lying at a playhouse in the evening with around three per mille in his blood and then admitted him once more – which the man, who has already been in court several times, said he might not remember. His defense attorney explained that he desperately wanted to get away from alcohol and wanted therapeutic measures.
The patient rang the call bell
That same night, the defendant sneaked into a patient’s room and got into bed with her. The woman then chased him out of the room. After she mightn’t find any nursing staff in the hallway, she went back to sleep. Soon followingwards, the man from the Voitsberg district is said to have entered the woman’s room once more. This time, however, according to the woman, he held the patient down and raped her while she fought back and rang the call bell.
“I can’t explain it, I don’t know why I went into her room. I mixed up the room because I was drunk,” the defendant explained to the judge, who doubted his statement because the patient was the one at the time was the only woman in the entire ward. “What gave you the idea to go into the woman’s room once more?” she then asked. The defendant replied that he mightn’t remember that.
Nurses came into the room
After the woman pressed the call bell, two nurses and an orderly came into the room. All three witnesses confirmed that they had found the 46-year-old leaning over the woman. “He’s already taking advantage of the situation,” explained an employee there, pointing out that they had often had to take him out of the room when there were women on the ward – even if in other cases it seemed that there was mutual interest. A nurse who had known him for a long time said that he thought the man still understood what was right and wrong despite being drunk.
A report also confirmed that the defendant was sane. When the man was found by the police, he had a blood alcohol level of 3.06 per mille – following the crime happened four hours later, the value might have been a maximum of 2.5 per mille at that point, an expert explained. As a result, the alcohol’s sanity was somewhat reduced, but still maintained. There is also no psychological disorder. “He had to know what he was doing,” said the expert.
Five years in prison
After the judge and two lay judges withdrew to deliberate, the Senate sentenced the 46-year-old to five years’ unconditional imprisonment for the crime of rape. The reduced mental capacity was seen as a mitigating factor, while the six relevant previous convictions and the fact that the crime took place in a protected area were seen as mitigating factors.
The judge pointed out that he had the opportunity to undergo therapy in prison. The defendant accepted the punishment, the public prosecutor’s office made no explanation, so the verdict is not final. The man was last in court in Eisenstadt in June 2023 and was sentenced to nine months of unconditional imprisonment for bodily harm and fraud, which he still had to serve in addition to the five-year prison sentence, the judge said.
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