Family in court

Little child tortured: what punishment is enough?

Mother, ex-stepfather and ex-grandmother had to answer for the suffering of a small child at the Klagenfurt Regional Court.(Bild: Krone KREATIV)

When Anna (name changed) sees a spider, the nine-year-old screams. And she is afraid of water. Abuse and questionable parenting methods at home, where the child is said to have been locked in the cellar, beaten with nettles or dumped in the pond, are to blame. Anna's ordeal is shocking - as are the punishments for the alleged perpetrators.

Sometimes it is almost impossible to put children's suffering into words, even if the public prosecutor's office in Klagenfurt has to do just that in its indictment: Describing the ways in which adults can humiliate, injure and abuse - physically and psychologically - little wards out of excessive demands or other base motives.