April 26, 2024

Athens News

News in English from Greece

Famous rock singer of leading Greek band accused of pedophilia

71-year-old G.G. convicted by the court of first instance. He is charged with the fact that “he committed sexual acts with a minor when she was from 6 to 8 years old.”

According to the Espresso article, it all started in the resort area of ​​eastern Attica in the fall of 2011. The underage family had a cottage a few meters from the house of the then 60-year-old drummer of a famous rock band in Greece.

The accused, both because of his popularity and because he is the father of two adult girls, was considered by the neighbors “a person beyond all suspicion.” Neighbors allowed their children to play near his house, because he showed special love for them and rejoiced at the children.

The dirt road that connected several houses was, in fact, a large courtyard, and local children entered and left the neighbors’ houses without hindrance.

The nightmare unraveled in May 2013, when the mother of a minor realized that something “weird” had happened between the musician and another child.

It all started when a neighbor couple suddenly forbade their child to go to the musician’s house. This prompted the mother of an 8-year-old girl to find out if something happened to her child. The girl, overcoming her initial shame, said that “every time she came to” uncle “home”, he turned on the TV, stopping at the channels with children’s programs, and while the girl watched them, he “grabbed her genitals and stuck his fingers in there. He did the same with other children, as the child testified.

This nightmare, as Espresso writes, happened, as it turned out, systematically, and therefore the shocked parents took the child to the Juvenile Department of the GADA a few days later. There, the girl, as expected, was examined by a specialized expert, who checked her ability to perceive. The girl testified about what happened to her “for the last time, the day before her mother told her that she should no longer go there.”

Despite the stubborn demand from the prosecutor’s office to impose a sentence on the accused, in March 2017 an acquittal was issued, which found insufficient evidence of what was reported. However, the prosecutor of the Court of Appeal filed a complaint that led to the musician’s re-arrest in August 2017.

At the trial of first instance at the Athens Police Headquarters, in April 2019, the defendant was found guilty by a 5-2 majority of molesting a minor under the age of 12 and sentenced to 12 years in prison without commutation. The accused, however, filed an appeal and was released on condition that he report to the local police station twice a month.

However, today the time has come for the court of second instance, when the fate of the musician will be finally decided. The drummer, according to the publication, referred to the absence of witnesses, saying that “the child fantasizes.”

The girl’s mother turned to the Espresso publication, pleading for help: “Today my daughter is 16.5 years old, and the injury inflicted on her by the accused of his illegal act, which he committed a long time ago, still harms her. While she is an excellent student and an organized teenager, she has difficulty trusting the opposite sex and does not understand how, while what the criminal did to her is punishable by law, he is free. She still receives psychological support today. I am next to her, as well as her father and brother. We believe that this time the evil will be punished.”



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