BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) — A client who duped a sex worker with fake proof of payment has been convicted of rape in Belgium, in a ruling the Antwerp court of appeal called unprecedented on Thursday.

Belgium is among several European countries that allow regulated sex work, and the port city of Antwerp has sought to protect people in the sector — the vast majority of them women.

It is not unheard of for Belgian sex workers to take clients to court for failure to pay, a spokeswoman for the Antwerp court of appeal told AFP.

But it is the first time a refusal to pay — or forging a transfer receipt — has been treated in court as an absence of consent for sex, and therefore as rape, the spokeswoman added.

The court noted that Belgian criminal law defines rape as “sexual penetration with a person who has not consented” — and that there can be no consent “if the sexual act results from a ruse or another punishable act”.

In its ruling, the court found the client deliberately deceived his victim by pretending to make a transfer via his banking app after she asked to be paid upfront.

This happened six times with the same woman, and each time he showed her his phone displaying either an unsigned transfer or a screenshot of a previously completed payment, the judges said.

The defendant, a Bulgarian national in his 30s, told the court he acted under the influence of cocaine, according to the spokeswoman.

He was handed a three-year suspended prison sentence with an obligation to undergo psychotherapy and submit to regular tests to prove he is no longer using drugs.