19. 03. 10. - 12:00

Incest uncle gets six years in prison

A Vienna man who shacked up with his then 13-year-old niece in a "love relationship" for a year and a half was sentenced to six years in prison in Vienna Criminal Court yesterday (Thurs).

Judge Norbert Gerstberger said: "She was at his mercy to a certain degree. He exploited her. She was his plaything. It was an exemplary case of sexual abuse for a long time."

He added that he had given the man, Wolfgang F., 38, a relatively mild sentence since he had confessed and accepted his responsibility for sexual abuse, kidnapping and abuse of his authority. The defendant could have been sentenced to 10 years in prison on those charges.

The judge also ordered the man to pay his niece Yvonne F. 10,000 Euros in damages. Her lawyer had demanded 50,000 Euros saying the niece’s experience at the hands of her uncle would "affect her psychologically for the rest of her life."

The judge told the defence attorney he would have to have to go to a civil court if he wanted more money.

The public prosecutor said the niece, who had run away from home at the beginning of 2008, had faced a dilemma.

She did not want to return home since she did not have a good relationship with her mother, whose partner was an alcoholic, but also did not want to contact a crisis intervention centre.

The prosecutor added that the jobless uncle had moved with the girl from apartment to apartment made available to him by friends. Many of the apartments had neither electricity nor running water, and they had to cook their food on a camp stove. The girl could not buy any clothes and had to wear her uncle’s old rags.

Defence attorney Charlotte Schuster said the defendant should receive a mild sentence to "help him break out of the vicious circle" he found himself in.

The niece had moved in with a flat-sharing community, health officials announced last year. Bettina Horvath, a social worker at the capital’s office for youth and families, said: "We have found a place to stay for Yvonne F."

She had been put into the care of the psychological department of Vienna’s general hospital (AKH) after investigators found her on 7 August. The teenager told carers she had got into the "love relationship" on her own free will. But her parents claimed the uncle – a brother of Yvonne’s mother – had forced her.

Her mother’s partner Gerhard Ebner accused cops of failing to take action after he had told them to check on his brother-in-law. Investigators found the girl through internet chat rooms.

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