'You wouldn't have done that to your own daughter': stepfather gets seven years in prison for abusing stepdaughter

A court in the Czech Republic has sentenced a man to seven years in prison for years of sexual abuse against his underage stepdaughter. According to the court, the stepfather had been molesting the girl since the onset of her adolescence. The judge justified the harsh sentence with the defendant's own words — he had denied guilt to the very end, claiming the girl was simply jealous of his relationship with her mother.

According to the court, the harassment began when the stepdaughter entered adolescence. The stepfather would approach her from behind and touch her breasts, linger washing his hands in the bathroom while she showered, come into her room, lie down beside her on the bed, briefly touch her and then leave right away.

A letter read out in court

Shortly before Thursday's hearing, the girl wrote a letter to the court describing what she had been through. At the prosecutor's request, Judge Jana Bodečková read it aloud. "There's smoke in my head. I'm afraid of running into him — when I see someone who looks like him, I start to panic. In my dreams he tries to reach me," the girl wrote in her letter.

The defendant insisted that the victim testify in person in court, but the panel of judges refused: the existing testimony was sufficient, and the judges did not want to force the girl to relive memories she is trying to leave behind.

"As with his own daughter"

Prosecutor Lucie Žábková asked the defendant whether he would have acted the same way if the girl had been his biological daughter. "I treated her like my own daughter, I would have done the same if she'd been my biological daughter," the man replied — an answer that effectively sealed his own fate.

Judge Jana Bodečková stressed that the defendant would never have allowed himself such behavior with his own daughter, and sentenced him to seven years in prison.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz