The Public Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday asked the Mons Correctional Court for a six-year prison sentence and five years' probation with the Sentence Enforcement Court for a man who sexually assaulted his 13-year-old stepdaughter.
The defendant, who is in his sixties, had already been convicted twice before for acts of indecency.
The 13-year-old girl reported the acts committed by her stepfather – between July 2022 and January 2023 – to the PMS (psycho-medico-social) centre in Thuin.
“She said that he touched her back, buttocks and chest,” the minor’s ad hoc guardian said. “He kissed her back, her shoulders, told her that he loved her and that he loved her skin.”
The abuse took place in the absence of the victim’s mother, who is the defendant’s partner.
The PMS centre subsequently reported it in a letter of denunciation to the Charleroi public prosecutor’s office. The accused admitted to the acts at the magistrates’ court, but was unable to explain the reasons that led him to act in this way.
The defendant had already been sentenced in January 2015 to five years’ imprisonment, suspended on probation, for rape and similar offences. He had also been tried in 1998 for indecent assault.
The Deputy Public Prosecutor requested a sentence of six years’ imprisonment and five years’ probation.
The defence pleaded for a suspended sentence with probation that "is extremely strict and supervised.” Judgement is expected on 14 August.
