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Munich Oktoberfest (symbolic image): “People just toasted each other, nothing else.”
Photo: Brigitte Saar / Future Image / IMAGO
He pinched a young woman's bottom twice during a visit to the Oktoberfest and now has to pay for it: a district court has sentenced the man from the Munich area to a fine of 6,400 euros, as the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" reports.
Until recently, the 49-year-old had insisted that he would not do something like that.
However, after the 21-year-old's statement, district judge Sebastian Schmitt was "convinced that this was the case."
The incident took place in the Augustiner festival tent.
The victim reported that towards the evening three gentlemen sat down at the table with her and her companions.
“They just toasted each other,” said the 21-year-old in court, “nothing else.”
“I was thinking about what actually happened there.”
When she came from the toilet later that evening, two or three of the men were standing in the aisle in front of the Oktoberfest table.
As she tried to walk past them, one of them grabbed her bottom.
“I quickly took a step to the side,” she says, and then the second trick came.
The 21-year-old says she was totally confused afterwards.
»I didn't know what to do.
“I thought about what actually happened,” said the student, according to “SZ”.
A little later, the grabber called out something like “yes, sorry.”
She didn't want to say anything in response, "I didn't know how they would react." However, just in case, the 21-year-old took a photo of the man with her cell phone.
Her boyfriend finally convinced the distraught woman to go to Safe Space.
Safe Space is a free contact point at the Oktoberfest that girls and women can go to if they feel threatened or have been sexually harassed.
There the student was also advised to report the 49-year-old.
It is not the first time that the Munich district court has imposed a high fine for a sexual assault.
Already in 2019, a 28-year-old civil engineer from Freising was sentenced to a fine of €5,400.
He grabbed a woman's bottom several times during a party in the beer tent and didn't let a punch to the jaw stop him from continuing to harass the woman.
eru