The 35-year-old wife and colleague of a former police officer stationed at Greece’s Parliament, who has been arrested and accused of serial child rape and incest, revealed to local media on Wednesday that years of physical abuse and the fear it instilled forced her to comply with his shocking demands, which she claims date back eight years.
The woman, a mother of five children with a sixth on the way, told TV station MEGA that her husband, through physical abuse, forced her to molest their children.
The incidents of child rape and incest began at the family home in 2016, when the couple’s oldest daughters were about five years old, the woman said.
“Out of fear and the beatings he inflicted on me, I was forced to obey. Even the children couldn’t resist because he would beat and threaten them as well,” she said. “More recently, I was having constant discussions with my daughters about how we could escape this sickening situation,” she said.
The case against the police officer was launched after his wife filed a second domestic violence complaint last month.
She had previously withdrawn an initial complaint in February, after her husband allegedly persuaded her to do so and seek criminal mediation by threatening suicide.
According to the woman, her husband had been filming his criminal acts, with some of the footage stored on his mobile phone. “However, since he constantly monitored and had access to everyone’s phones and accounts, I’m afraid he might delete the evidence himself or force our son to do it,” she added.
In her comments to the TV station, the woman recalled being slapped by her husband early on during their relationship after she cursed during a telephone conversation with a girlfriend. Her husband told her that he would not tolerate such language from his partner, questioning if she were a “streetwalker”, according to the woman. “I didn’t react. I accepted it,” she said.