Greek police has arrested a 57-year-old priest for the sexual abuse of the 12-year-old daughter of his partner. The abuse had started three years ago, when the girl was 9 years old.
The shocking case was revealed beginning of the week and the man was arrested by order of the prosecution.
The priest, a widower father of 4, has living together with the girl’s mother, a Bulgarian national, in a village of eastern Mani in south Peloponnese.
In April 2018 the little girl found the courage and turned to a children charity seeking protection.
“Her mother did not believed her. The child was under pressure by her mother, the priest and the lawyer to change her testimony to authorities,” the president of charity To Xamogelo toy Pedioy told media.
In the end the mother was convinced that the priest was molesting her daughter,” Kostas Giannopoulos said.
Ultimately, the mother testified and the priest was arrested, notes the charity in a statement.
It is not clear, why the arrest takes place end October 2019, when the child sought protection in April 2018.
It is further revealed that the villagers knew that the priest “liked children” as locals said. However, nobody denounced him to authorities.
“Everybody knew it,” a villager told media. “He would go around drunk all day. We knew that he was molesting children and we kept our children away from him.”
Local media report that the everything but holy man “used to brutally beat the girl when she was resisting to her abuse.”
The Metropolis of Mani suspended the priest once the case became known.
Police is expected to make an announcement on the case and also publish the priest’s name and picture as it is required by Law for sex offenders. The priest is currently in the prison of Tripolis in Central Peloponnese.
Greeks on social media sharply criticize the “guilty silence” of the villagers. Some of them, have uploaded the picture and the name of the priest, long before the Greek Police.
The village people are guilty as well and should be brought before the courts and punished with prison,she wasnt the first that they knew about,how cruel,as long as it wasnt their kid suffering,Greeks are full of shush,shush,shush,dont get involved it matters that dont concern us.They should be named and shamed for sure,all across the globe,they stand guilty.