Man raped drunk woman near Brno train station — court rejects his appeal against "too harsh" sentence

The Brno Municipal Court sentenced a foreign national to four years in prison and expulsion from the Czech Republic for five years over the rape of a woman that took place on the night of October 6, 2024, near the Letmo shopping centre by the main railway station. The convicted man appealed the verdict, arguing that four years in prison was too harsh a punishment for an incident that lasted "only a few dozen seconds."

According to case materials, the man spotted an intoxicated woman near the station and offered to drive her home in his car, which was parked nearby. Instead, he forced her to perform oral sex on him inside the vehicle.

In the appeal filed with the regional court, the convicted man insisted that the security cameras only captured him bringing the woman to the car, both of them getting in, and then getting out again shortly after — while no one saw what happened inside. "The question isn't whether there was intimate contact, but whether it was forced, and to what degree," he claimed in his complaint.

According to him, there is a difference between "repeated, violent and prolonged abuse" and "a brief incident lasting a few dozen seconds," in which, he argued, clear and unambiguous signs of refusal were never proven. The defence called the 48-month sentence an "overreaction" for such a short episode whose evidentiary basis was, in their view, questionable.

However, the appellate panel, chaired by Judge Vlastimir Čech, rejected these arguments in a ruling issued at the turn of April and May. The judge pointed out that just minutes after the incident, the woman herself went to the police to report the rape in the car. She was in a state of severe distress — shaking and crying — and several bruises were found on her body, including on her neck, where she said the attacker had held her down. She later gave an identical account of events to a doctor, investigators, and the court.

"The victim clearly had no motive to make a false accusation. Initially, she didn't even want the police to pursue the case. The credibility of her testimony is further supported by the fact that, despite repeated explanations of her rights, she never sought compensation for moral damages. She is a law-abiding person — unlike the defendant, who has previously been convicted of violent crimes on multiple occasions," Judge Čech noted.

The judge also pointed out that the man had repeatedly changed his account of why and how he ended up in the car with the woman. "In a situation where the defendant forcibly pressed the victim's face against his genitals, and she found herself unexpectedly forced to perform oral contact, it was extremely difficult for her to leave the vehicle, contrary to the defence's claims," the judge concluded, rejecting the appeal.

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Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz