A 69-year-old German man who had sex with his daughter more than 500 times and fathered three children with her has been cleared of rape.
Adolf Bergbauer was sentenced to just two years and eight months in prison for incest, after a judge threw out the rape charge.
Bergbaeur alleged his daughter, whom he began having sex with at the age of 12, always propositioned him, news.com.au reported.
He could not be charged with statutory rape because it occurred more than 20 years ago.
His daughter, now aged 46, vehemently denied the claims and told a
Nuremberg court he had regularly beaten her and threatened to kill her
if she told anyone.
Media outlets have nicknamed Bergbaeur the “German Frizl”, in
reference to the Austrian rapist Josef Frizl, who kept his daughter
Elisabeth locked in an underground dungeon for 24 years and fathered six
children with her.
Two of the three sons Bergbaeur's daughter bore her father died, while the third survives.
The
case only came to light after the woman was convicted of blackmailing
the wife of a doctor she blamed for the disability of one of her sons, the Daily Mail reported.
Prosecutors had demanded a 14-year sentence for the ordeal he
inflicted on his daughter but the court ruled it was impossible to prove
the relationship was not consensual and highlighted inconsistencies in
her testimony.
A spokesman for a rape crisis centre in Berlin told the Scotsman: “This is a shocking judgement, for the woman, for women everywhere and for justice.
“What was this judge thinking? That a 12-year-old girl can make these kind of choices?”
