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The Supreme Court has set a new precedent for longer sentences in child pornography cases, following revelations that the problem is getting bigger and some content in materials seized by police was shockingly abhorrent.
Attorney General Costas Clerides recently sought tougher sentences by referring a number of lower court convictions to the Supreme Court, arguing the rulings were too lenient.
The Supreme Court ruled for a third time in just a few days that a sentence in a child porn case was too lenient. In the latest case, a man who had been sentenced to three years by the Limassol District Court saw his sentence rising to five years, with judges having no objection siding with the state prosecutor who appealed the sentence on behalf of the AG.
Shocking content
The man, who is described as a 29-year-old foreign national, had in his possession very shocking scenes of child porn, described as most deplorable and abhorrent. According to daily Phileleftheros, some of the images in the collection depicted children under the age of 13.
The man had in his possession very shocking scenes of child porn, described as most deplorable and abhorrent
Some of the content also depicted sadistic activities with children engaging in bestiality, where they were shown having intercourse wither by penetrating or being penetrated by an animal.
Longer sentence as a deterrent
The judges overruled the lower court sentence in an effort to push back against a trend where child porn cases are on the rise, with some of them showing a higher degree of perversion.
“It has to be taken into account that the production of such material not only does it offend but it also neutralises every bit of human worth, and it is fuelled by the abnormal and perverted search for it by individuals such as the defendant.”
This case and many others involved large collections of material, which the appellate court found to be “extremely dangerous” and alarming in how it represents a trend.
