Appeals court reduces stepfather’s sentence and raises damages

Iceland’s Court of Appeal has reduced a stepfather’s prison sentence for offences against his stepdaughter and increased the compensation he must pay her, mbl.is reported. The court sentenced him to six months in prison, suspended for two years, for repeatedly threatening the girl’s life, health and welfare between September 2022 and August 2024.

In October last year, the District Court of Reykjanes sentenced the man to 10 months in prison without suspension and ordered him to pay the girl 1.25 million Icelandic krónur in compensation. The Court of Appeal raised the compensation to 1.5 million krónur.

The man and the girl’s mother moved to Iceland in 2021, and the girl joined them the following year. The household also included the man’s mother, his brother and his brother’s girlfriend. Court documents said the girl had a history of trauma and had struggled with self-harm and suicidal thoughts.

The case began in late August 2024, when child protection services received an anonymous report. The girl was placed in an emergency shelter the next day, and the agency then requested a police investigation.

The judgment describes an incident in August 2024, when the girl came home late. According to her testimony, the man pulled her hair and spat in her face after finding messages on her phone with her girlfriend, whom her parents had forbidden her to meet. When she went to the bathroom to clean herself, he followed and hit her hard in the back.

The Court of Appeal found it proven that the man had repeatedly spoken to the girl in a demeaning way, shouted at her, threatened once to hit her and repeatedly threatened her with a raised fist. It also found that he had damaged her phone, spat in her face, hit her in the back, grabbed her upper arm and pulled her hair.

The court acquitted him of other charges on which the district court had found him guilty. It found no proof that he had threatened to cut or kill her. The court also said it was not relevant whether he had threatened to send her to her biological father abroad, as it was not proven that he knew the father was abusive.

Nor was the phone inspection a basis for conviction, as the evidence indicated that the girl had allowed it. The man was not convicted of tearing her trousers because the evidence suggested that happened outside the period covered by the indictment. The court also found it immaterial whether he had forbidden her from seeing her girlfriend, pushed her shoulder or pulled her sweater.