Paphos, Cyprus. Attorney-general George Savvides has ordered the criminal prosecution of a 37-year-old British man after his three-year-old son fell to his death from a fourth-floor hotel window in Paphos.
The man is expected to reappear before the Paphos district court on Tuesday, facing a charge of causing death due to recklessness, among others.
Restrictive conditions
Police said the accused will be subject to strict restrictive conditions intended to ensure his attendance at future court hearings, according to the Cyprus News Agency.
The man was remanded in custody for eight days on Monday last week, with the remand order due to expire on Tuesday.
Lawyer’s comments
Criminal lawyer Christos Triantafyllides described the continued remand as a major mistake, saying he had not encountered a similar case in 46 years of legal practice.
Triantafyllides said that, as the case was not being investigated as homicide, the circumstances appeared to involve either negligence or an accident. He said neither situation would normally justify an eight-day remand after an initial court hearing.
He said detention is generally ordered where there is a risk of absconding, a risk of reoffending or in cases such as murder, adding that he did not believe those grounds applied in this case.
Fatal fall
The family was on holiday at the hotel when the boy fell from the fourth-floor window on the evening of July 12, the first day of their trip. The father was arrested later that evening.