The Paphos District Court on Friday fined a 37-year-old British man 3,000 euros for causing the death of his three-year-old son through a reckless, rash or dangerous act, sparing him a prison sentence.
The fine will be deducted from the 30,000 euros he paid as bail under the conditions imposed during the proceedings. He is now free to return to his family and his home country.
The court found that the father had not acted with the intention of harming his child. It also took into account the tragedy he is living through and the fact that he had cooperated fully and sincerely with the authorities after his son’s death.
During the mitigation hearing, prosecutor Chryso Perganti set out the facts of the case and the allegations against him. Defence lawyer Alexandros Alexandrou asked for the lowest sentence allowed by law. He argued that it had been a moment of inattention, with events unfolding in a fraction of a second. No sentence could undo the tragedy, he said, which his client would carry for the rest of his life.
The boy fell from the fourth floor of a hotel in Paphos district while waiting with his father and grandfather for the lift to take them down to dinner. According to the boy’s relatives’ testimony, he was playing with his father, who sat him on a window next to the lift without realising it was open, and the boy fell.
A post-mortem examination found that he died of severe head and brain injuries and multiple injuries to vital organs caused by the fall from height.
The boy died on Sunday, 12 July, at a hotel in Chloraka, hours after the family arrived in Cyprus on holiday. The father pleaded guilty on 22 September. In August, the Attorney General rejected a defence request to suspend the prosecution on humanitarian grounds.
At the mitigation hearing, the prosecution said an initial test showed 34mg of alcohol, but a later laboratory report found the father had 124mg in his system at the material time. The defence argued there was no evidence that drinking had affected his behaviour.
