The High Court will decide on the appeal of a man who received nine years for abusing his girlfriend

“In one case, he cut the tendons on her instep, during other attacks the woman suffered a contusion of the skull and deformation of the earlobes,” described Stanislav Cik, the spokesperson of the Olomouc High Court.

Last December, the Olomouc Regional Court sentenced the man to nine years in prison for abusing a person living in a shared home and for attempting to cause serious bodily harm. According to the indictment, the man beat his girlfriend, pulled her hair and forbade her, for example, to go to the toilet.

“According to the expert opinion, the victim suffered from a syndrome of abuse of a person, to such an extent that she blamed herself for things she did not cause,” said judge Vladimír Najdekr last year.

He admitted that the situation was complicated by the fact that all the violence took place behind closed doors and that she was damaged by an alcoholic woman whose three children had been taken away.

“But the fact that she is a problematic person does not make her an inferior victim of a crime,” added the judge, adding that even according to experts, her statement is credible.

The man originally faced five to twelve years. When imposing the sentence, the court took into account a number of aggravating circumstances, including ten entries in the criminal record, the commission of multiple crimes and his attitude towards the prosecution. He also imposed damages in the form of pain and non-pecuniary damage in the amount of over a quarter of a million crowns.