By Evie Andreou
A 38-year-old man, Christakis Poggouros from Livadia, received three concurrent jail sentences on Wednesday, the longest for six years, after he was found guilty for causing grievous bodily harm, psychological damage and threatening his 28-year-old partner.
Poggouros was sentenced by the Larnaca criminal court to six years for causing bodily harm, three years for causing mental damage and one year for threatening his partner, with whom he lived since last November in his house in Livadia. The woman has a seven-year-old daughter.
The court heard that the defendant, who is a drug user, was also providing his partner with drugs and that shortly after she moved in, he was repeatedly hitting her, taking away her mobile phone to prevent her from calling her family, and threatening her that if she left him, things would get worse for her and her daughter.
Reportedly, when she left him once, she returned after three days because she had feelings for him, to get her drug dosage and because he was repeatedly threatening her life.
On another occasion, she suffered fractures of her ribs, nose, mouth and ears after she was beaten and she was transferred to the Larnaca hospital where she underwent surgery in both her ears, the court heard.
The woman’s lawyer told the court that the defendant has already two other convictions and was incarcerated, but that he had received presidential pardons in both cases.
The first conviction concerned a break-in and robbery for which he was sentenced to three and a half years in 2002 and was released in 2004, and in the other, in 2005, he was sentenced to eleven years for cultivation, and possession of drugs with the aim to supply others, but was released in 2011.
Poggouros’ lawyer said that the plaintiff was provoking his client and that she too bears responsibility for her situation caused by his client’s behaviour.
He added that the law should also denounce people who do not protect themselves when they are exposed or do not take any measures to protect themselves and punish them.
The Assize Court ruled that the woman continued to live with the accused because of love, dependence on drugs, and fear that if she abandoned him, both she and her child would be at risk.
The plaintiff, the court ruled, did not consent or encourage the perpetrator to assault her, and never acquiesced in any way to “the unacceptable and cruel behaviour against her”.
It also ruled that the 38-year-old man’s attacks were deemed as “the serious kind, with the consequent need for deterrence and the transmission of clear messages both to him and to all aspiring imitators, that such behaviour is not tolerated by a civilised society”.
