The court increased the sentence of the choirmaster, who abused his charges, to six years

The choirmaster, who raped and abused boys in the Prague parish choir for a long time, will serve six years in prison. On Wednesday, the High Court in Prague increased his original prison sentence by two years based on the prosecutor’s appeal. The decision is final. Part of the punishment remained institutional sexological treatment and also the maximum possible, i.e. a ten-year ban on working with children.

“Sacrifices are Christian in origin and were led to forgive the sins of sinners. But that is not the role of the court and the state, which is supposed to protect society as a whole, regardless of religion and belief,” said judge Miroslav Pavrovský when justifying the sentence. He emphasized that the criminal activity lasted an unusually long time and that the choir master did not seek professional help that could have stopped his actions. “If the sentence was a lifetime ban on working with children, the defendant would undoubtedly have to receive it,” he noted.

The man committed the acts in the Prague choir he founded between 2002 and 2012, with hundreds of individual sub-attacks consisting of groping, masturbation and oral sex. Years later, in 2021, he also abused his pupil, whom he was teaching to play the organ. All of the man’s criminal activities came to light only recently, when one of the victims filed a criminal complaint.

The boys did not actively resist adult authority – some of them were only eight, the oldest 13 years old. They were not comfortable with the man’s actions, and at the same time they were afraid that someone would find out about him. Some of them later struggled with depression or suicidal thoughts, self-harm, remorse, doubts about their sexual preference and problems establishing relationships with girls.

The Prague archdiocese described the choir master’s actions as the failure of an individual that no one knew about. It said the church has mechanisms in place to prevent similar incidents – including training church workers.