In the middle of last June, criminal lawyer Apostolos Lytras was in the news for the savage beating of his then-wife Sophia Polyzogopoulou; he had managed 17 punches to her face alone. He was heavily prosecuted and taken into custody. Six months later, the confessed abuser shows his new life, with his new partner, in the luxurious house they live in and answers questions such as… whether he swims in the pool in winter.

This is the same man who just six months ago was talking about telecasts and saying “I despise” to the cameras because he was wearing handcuffs like every abuser who is arrested, having even attempted to get away with it by forcing his victim to invoke the usual excuse of beating victims: “I fell down the stairs,” Polyzogopoulou had told the doctor, who, unfortunately for Lytra, didn’t believe it for a moment.
Unfortunately, for Lytras, the police did not believe it for a moment.

Lytras, in a television appearance with the air of a showbiz primetime star, carefully chooses the words with which he refers to his ex-wife and at the same time attempts to rebuild the profile of the loving family man. For Lytra, the beating is an “incident”, the only incident of his life. He says: “It’s not my choice to make my life public, it’s something I’m used to. After the incident that happened with my ex-wife, your colleagues looked into everything about me. There’s nothing in my life that’s wrong, apart from that particular incident. It is something I have regretted, all I care about is my family, my children, and my profession. My eldest daughter is a third-year law student and she is the one who used to go to the office daily. I think the most important thing I have accomplished in my life is these three children.” In TV lifestyle terms, he also refers to the communication he has with his youngest daughter, who he had with the woman he brutally abused and the sessions he has to have to control behaviors such as the one that sends him to be charged.

“There is a difficulty in communication,” he says of his 10-year-old daughter, adding: “From there, there’s a constant effort on my part in trying to have the right communication with her. Even though there was a decision on how to communicate, this was not adhered to. With the consent of my ex-wife, I can contact the child any time of the day I want on the phone. She is a 10-year-old child and she wants her time.”

Asked if he has visited a specialist he pointed out that he does have sessions: “I am trying not only this particular piece but many others to put them in place and resolve some problems that have arisen.” And to avoid any anxiety about what he will do at Christmas, he says that he and his new partner “will try to get away. It’s very difficult for me because I’ve lost my father, he was a man I always had him with me at all the holidays.”

Lytras is now facing justice, which has put him on trial on a lighter charge than the original prosecution brought against him, which led to his remand (not in the first place, but when it was ruled that he had violated the restrictive condition of communication with Sophia Polyzogopoulou by sending messages). He will be tried for the misdemeanor of dangerous bodily harm, instead of the felony of grievous bodily harm, as decided by the Athens Plenary Council.

The “incident” referred to by the criminal lawyer whose defense of himself is the trial of his life, literally and figuratively, was described in his testimony by the doctor who treated Sophia Polyzogopoulou and then confirmed to the hilt by the forensic pathologist. The doctor is sitting down: “Clinically, she has facial bruising and swelling – forehead, cheekbones, amphorae; ecchymosis of the eye sockets (raccoon eyes), fracture of the right lobe, ear, swelling and bleeding of the nose, abrasions and swellings of upper and lower lip, lacerations and swellings of tongue, abrasions and swellings of forearm, swelling of proximal phalangeal joint of right little finger, scalp scalp.

Imaging findings: fracture of the nasal bone, fracture of base- palmar surface – middle phalanx of little finger, right-hand extremity. Lab shows elevated CPU values. She carries blood on her scalp as well as hair tufts on her clothing and body. When I asked her which man hit her if it was the same man who had brought her to the ER, she answered in the affirmative. I immediately informed the emergency response for her actions.”

The Lytra case had amply demonstrated that the problem of domestic violence runs vertically through society and does not affect specific, only, social groups. Combined with several cases of violence, and murders of women by husbands and partners – culminating in the murder of Kyriaki Griva outside the Agion Anargyroi police station – it forced the government to announce and take many measures to stem the tide of violence. Six months later, the problem remains acute, and while ministers make statistical findings and talk of tightening penalties, an admitted abuser describes his daily walks on the sea…