The defendant said she had got to know the man in 2011 and they had fallen in love. She said he had wanted to have a child but when she did become pregnant he changed his mind. “Suddenly his mother said he shouldn’t be having a child,” a witness and close friend of the woman told the judge.

The 49-year-old woman said she flew to London to have an abortion at a special clinic and that the man said he would cover the costs – which came to €3,350.  

However, once the relationship ended the man said he began to have doubts that the woman had actually been pregnant and had an abortion. He said the hospital bill which she gave him had no invoice number and spelling errors – and that the doctor who allegedly performed the abortion wasn’t known of at the clinic. He believes that his ex forged the bill, and filed a complaint against her.

The woman swore that she did have an abortion, and said she was forced to after her ex threatened her. However, her description of events also cast some doubt on her testimony as the airline she claimed she flew to London with wasn’t operating any flights from Vienna on the day that she said she flew out. When confronted by the judge she said that she had actually flown with British Airways and had got confused.

A psychiatrist who treated her three times a week, after the abortion, testified that she suffered from “depression and post-traumatic stress disorder” which he was convinced was caused by her experience. “The images haunted her, and these are things that she could not have invented,” he said.

Judge Georg Olschak summed up by saying that he was not going to charge the woman as he had “no idea” what had really happened.