Psychiatrist Cimický abused patients over four decades: investigator Janíková described the case
Police investigator Terezie Janíková detailed the background of psychiatrist Jan Cimický's case, convicted of 39 sexual assaults. According to her, the actual number of victims was close to one hundred.
How investigator Janíková pieced together psychiatrist Cimický's mosaic of crimes
Police investigator Terezie Janíková spent several years gathering evidence against psychiatrist Jan Cimický before bringing him to court. As Deník.cz reports, Cimický was finally convicted of thirty-nine sexual assaults and extortion and is now awaiting the start of a five-year custodial sentence combined with a ten-year ban on practising his profession.
Following the September ruling, Janíková accepted an invitation to appear on a podcast by journalist Nora Fridrichová, where she spoke publicly for the first time about previously undisclosed details from the investigation.
The actual scope: nearly one hundred cases
According to Janíková, the number of proven assaults falls far short of capturing the true extent of Cimický's conduct. "The actual number of cases was approximately close to one hundred," the investigator stated. Some acts had expired under the statute of limitations, whilst others could not be substantively proven. Some of the injured parties had also withdrawn from proceedings — they did not wish to relive the trauma of memories or give evidence in court in the presence of the accused.
Cimický sexually harassed his victims over four decades — from the late 1970s until 2019. He selected most of them from among the patients of the Bohnice psychiatric hospital and the Modrá laguna centre, but also attacked female students and other women from his circle.
Modus operandi: assault disguised as therapy
According to Janíková, Cimický's method of operation was repetitive. He attacked without warning: he would grope women, kiss them and force them to engage in various sexual acts, while characterising his behaviour as therapeutic procedures.
"These women came to him for help when they were experiencing family problems, had lost someone close to them, their lives had fallen apart, and then the doctor attacked them. He was the person who was supposed to help them — and what happened was that they were afraid to speak up and doubted themselves, because Dr Cimický had been something like a medical celebrity for years," Janíková said.
The investigator listened to the testimony of each of the abused women and observed that even after decades, many of the victims had not come to terms with the harm they had suffered.
A publicly known face among the victims
Among those who ultimately publicly described their experience was television presenter Martina Vrbová Hynková. On her Instagram account, she described the attack she experienced during a work visit to Cimický's surgery, where they had previously filmed a programme called What should I do when…
"Dr Cimický attacked me shortly after I arrived. He knocked me onto a sofa, where he began to grope me on the chest and kiss me. At the moment when I managed to push him away for a moment, he started to recite one of his poems. I was in absolute shock," Vrbová Hynková wrote.
After some time, she managed to escape from the surgery. She immediately terminated her collaboration on the programme. "I am writing all of this to support the women-patients of Dr Cimický, whose testimonies are being downplayed and trivialised by some people. I was not a patient, I was in the programme as his colleague, a presenter for Czech Television — and the same thing happened to me," she added.
Vrbová Hynková was the second publicly known figure to speak out about her experiences with Cimický — after singer Jana Fabiánová.
Conviction without remorse
Jan Cimický, now 78 years old, denied guilt in court and did not confess to his conduct. According to available information, he lacked self-reflection throughout the entire proceedings.
For Terezie Janíková, the final conviction was a relief and a measure of justice. "The case is made up of dozens of stories, and at the end of each one you ask yourself: How could he possibly have done that to these women?" concluded the investigator on the years she spent documenting the sexual crimes of one of the Czech Republic's best-known psychiatrists.
The case, which became public in 2021, is according to experts absolutely unique in the Czech context in terms of its scope, circumstances and the perpetrator's profile.
Source: Deník.cz