The appellate complaint of the juvenile prosecutors of the Sumy Regional Prosecutor's Office has annulled the decision of the first instance court, which sentenced a 39-year-old man to 15 years of imprisonment for the systematic rape of his minor stepdaughter and her friend. 

On the public prosecution of the prosecutors, by the verdict of the Sumy Appellate Court on September 10, 2025, the accused was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The prosecutor proved in court that the accused had been living for a long time in one of the settlements of the Okhtyrka district with a woman and her minor daughter. In July 2019, the man raped the 12-year-old girl. Since then, he repeatedly committed similar acts of sexual violence against the child. Only in January 2023 did the girl dare to tell a friend about the abuse, who then reported it to the law enforcement authorities.

After the man was detained, it became clear that he had not only raped his stepdaughter: from August 2022, he had also raped her friend, who was 15 years old at the time of the crime.

Throughout this time, the man constantly applied psychological pressure and threatened the girls with physical harm if they told anyone about what he was doing to them.

The actions of the accused were qualified as the rape of a minor and a person who has not reached the age of fourteen, committed repeatedly (Part 3, Part 4, Part 6 of Article 152 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

The accused awaited the court's decision in custody.

The criminal actions of the man were stopped by investigators of the Okhtyrka District Police Department of the Main Directorate of the National Police in the Sumy region in cooperation with prosecutors of the Okhtyrka District Prosecutor's Office.