Briton pleads guilty to ‘recklessly’ causing death of his son in Cyprus

Man’s lawyer says he accepted charge over toddler’s fall from window to avoid harrowing trial for himself and his family

A British man has pleaded guilty to “recklessly” causing the death of his son, 10 weeks after the toddler fell from a fourth-floor hotel window in Cyprus.

The 37-year-old, who appeared before the district court of Paphos on Tuesday, accepted the charge of causing the accident through a “rash, reckless and dangerous act” on the first day of a family holiday near Paphos on 12 July.

The case was adjourned until 5 October, when the judge ordered the man to return for sentencing. Under the maximum penalty he could face up to four years in prison.

Explaining his client’s decision to enter the plea, the defence lawyer, Alexandros Alexandrou, said the alternative was the prospect of prolonged criminal proceedings. If he had contested the charge, a series of hearings would have ensued, forcing the father to repeatedly confront the circumstances of the two-year-old’s death. His client had broken down inconsolably when he appeared in the same courtroom to be formally charged in July.

“[A trial] would be disturbing for him, for his family,” said Alexandrou, emphasising that the Briton, his wife and other relatives were still processing the grief of their “unimaginable loss”.

“In order to end this story he accepted [the accusation],” he said, adding the defence would present mitigating factors in an attempt to secure a lenient verdict. “If the maximum sentence were imposed, the defence would appeal. This kind of penalty is not acceptable from our side.”

Until last week the man had hoped the charge would be suspended. In what amounted to a desperate plea for reprieve, the Briton, a senior employee at one of the big four accounting firms, had appealed to George Savvides, the attorney general of Cyprus, to intervene.

As the island’s top legal authority, Savvides has the power to confer clemency by discontinuing criminal procedures on humanitarian grounds.

Alexandrou had lodged the appeal saying: “In these exceptional circumstances, we do not believe a continued criminal process serves the public interest. The focus now should be on [the family’s] welfare and recovery.”

The request was denied. Addressing Paphos’s district court last week, state prosecutors said that while Savvides recognised the father’s grief, there had been loss of life and it was a matter of “public interest” that the criminal proceedings went ahead.

Until the eve of the plea hearing it had remained unknown how the defendant would contest the charge of causing his son’s death.

The boy, who would have turned three last week, fell from a fourth-floor window at the King Evelthon hotel and resort on the Chlorakas coastline outside Paphos.

The father claims he placed him on the windowsill – along a corridor leading to a lift that his relatives were about to use – not realising the window was ajar. The toddler then fell backwards, suffering fatal cranial injuries when he hit a veranda 10 metres (33ft) below.

In a country so dependent on tourism, criticism has mounted as human rights defenders, media pundits and diplomats have questioned the perceived lack of compassion with which officials have approached the case.

While the letter of the law had been adhered to so assiduously by police and court officials, “no one had asked why the window did not have bars”, said a diplomat based in Nicosia, the eastern Mediterranean island’s capital.

“It’s perplexing that there’s all this emphasis on the father being a criminal and so little focus on the circumstances in which the boy died,” he added. “Why was there even a window there and why was it open? In a country where permits to build hotels are often lax, these are questions that should not be ignored.”

In an editorial last week, the Cyprus Mail echoed that sentiment. “Why are authorities so eager to treat tragic accidents as criminal acts?” it asked, after a similar incident in which the three-year-old son of African immigrants fell to his death from the balcony of his family’s sixth-floor apartment in Nicosia.

Like the Briton, his parents were held in custody for several days although they were eventually released without charge.

The attorney general’s decision to go ahead with the prosecution – described as both disappointing and surprising by Alexandrou – had stirred further debate. The role of Cyprus’s attorney general has long been regarded as one of the most controversial legacies of the island’s former status as a British colony.

The island’s leading human rights lawyer, Achilleas Demetriades, said the Briton had fallen foul of “an archaic system” that was long overdue an overhaul. Under Cyprus’s postcolonial justice system, such decisions remained entirely at the discretion of the attorney general and could not be challenged, he said.

For years there had been talk of amending the constitution to resolve the anomaly, he added. “It’s in the process of being amended because the office of the attorney general, when it takes this type of decision, should have judicial overview which it currently does not.

“Sadly, this man has fallen victim to an archaic system in which one man, the attorney general, has unfettered power. This certainly raises human rights issues.”