Court upholds suspended sentence for three assaults on partner
Friday 13th November 2026 on 20:15 in
Iceland
Iceland’s Court of Appeal has upheld a three-month suspended prison sentence for a man who assaulted his partner three times in about 12 hours, mbl.is reported Friday. He was also convicted of violating child protection laws in relation to the woman’s daughter, who witnessed two of the assaults and intervened.
The assaults took place on the evening of November 17, 2023, and the following morning. In the first, at the man’s home, he threw the woman to the floor, pressed his knees against her body, held her hands down and spat towards her face.
The next morning, he attacked her in a bedroom at her home. He threw her against a wall and wardrobe, pulled her leg so she fell backwards, and pressed a knee against her neck while she was lying in bed. Her daughter woke to the noise and stepped between them. Together, the women managed to get him out of the home.
About an hour later, he returned. He grabbed and squeezed the woman’s arms, squeezed her face and spat towards it. She suffered bruising to her upper arm, calf and chest, as well as pain in both calves.
The man denied the charges, saying he had held the woman to defend himself and regain control of the situation. He also said he could not remember what happened because he had been drunk and could not explain her injuries.
The Court of Appeal said the woman’s account had been consistent and credible from the outset. It was supported by the daughter’s testimony, a medical certificate and photographs of the injuries, which were also consistent with the woman’s description of events. The court found that the man had committed the assaults as described in the indictment and that his conduct during the attacks at the woman’s home breached child protection laws.
The court upheld the Reykjanes District Court’s ruling, which imposed a three-month prison sentence suspended for two years. In setting the sentence, the district court considered that the man had no previous conviction for a violent offence, but also that he had assaulted the woman three times in about 12 hours and that her daughter had witnessed two of the attacks.
The man must pay nearly 1.1 million Icelandic krónur in appeal costs, in addition to nearly 875,000 krónur in district court costs.