Therapy in prison

Finally in custody! The parents are relieved

From then on, the accused will be helped in an institution.

(Bild: HS, Krone KREATIV)

The alcoholic son (55), who threatened to kill himself several times because he hadn't had enough beer, is finally allowed to undergo therapy. Will the future be rosy?

The accused, who has ten years of special schooling and is an early retiree, leans on a walker as he is brought out of custody at Eisenstadt Regional Court. Without being judgmental, he is actually a poor man who never meant his parents any harm. Except when they didn't give him enough beer. "I've had ten a day since I was a teenager," says the man. We do the math, that's an estimated 1500 hectoliters, and the remote diagnosis is: that's quite a lot!

Parents threatened with knife and iron bar
Last year, the man from northern Burgenland was given a six-month conditional sentence for threatening his parents with a knife. During the trial period, he removed the handle from a shopping trolley and threatened to "smash his father's skull" with it. The reason: his parents denied him his eleventh beer that day. The boy missed his father with the Billa stick, damaging the Christmas crib and the kitchen table.

Futile search for a therapy place
"I would never hurt my parents," says the defendant, who hugs them both warmly after entering the courtroom. And: "After all, he is our child," says the father, who tried for four months to find a place for Junior. "They told us everywhere that they wouldn't take him because there was no chance of successful therapy."

The 55-year-old has now been in Eisenstadt prison since January 6. Admittedly without beer. "I won't shake if I don't get any more," he says before accepting the sentence handed down by Judge Karin Knöchl: Nine months in prison, to be served in an institution for lawbreakers in need of detoxification. There he will undergo professional withdrawal.

The parents hug their boy.