Supreme Court upholds conviction for abuse of granddaughters
Tuesday 13th October 2026 on 15:15 in
Austria
Austria’s Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a retired Vorarlberg police officer for sexually abusing his two granddaughters, ORF reported. The 77-year-old was sentenced to 10 years in prison in April 2025, but the sentence is still under appeal.
The offences took place between 2002 and 2010 in Bregenz and at a campsite in Italy, according to the judgment. One granddaughter was nine when the abuse began. The court found she had developed post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, sleep problems and sexual dysfunction, classifying the consequences as serious bodily injury. That raised the applicable sentencing range to between five and 15 years. The man denied the allegations and called them fabricated.
The Supreme Court rejected his challenge to the conviction, including his argument that several offences were time-barred. It said limitation periods for offences against victims who were minors begin only when they turn 28. Later offences with the same harmful propensity can also halt the limitation period for earlier ones.
The court also ruled that a dangerous threat from 1991 or 1992 was not time-barred. The man had held an unloaded revolver to the temple of his then 16-year-old future daughter-in-law and pulled the trigger. His illegal possession of weapons until 2023 was a continuing offence that prevented the limitation period from running, the court said.
The Supreme Court rejected claims that the trial court had mishandled the evidence. Discrepancies about the colour of an inflatable boat, whether a diving suit was worn and the precise timing of offences did not concern decisive facts, it found. The trial court had not violated the defence’s rights by declining to question a victim again, as she had expressly refused to give further evidence and was not required to do so.
In its decision of 22 September, the Supreme Court noted errors in the trial court’s citations of some legal provisions, including one version of a provision that had never existed in that form. It said the mistakes did not affect the sentencing range or the sentence and therefore only clarified them.
The conviction is now final, but the sentence is not. Both the defendant and the prosecution have appealed the sentence, and the case has been sent to the Innsbruck Higher Regional Court. The man must pay the costs of the appeal proceedings so far.