The Supreme Court (TS) has supported increasing the sentence from two to four years in prison for a student and disciplinary assistant of the La Laguna Seminary instructor accused of abusing an inmate minor.
At the time, the Provincial Court of Tenerife imposed a two-year sentence, but the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC) later increased the sentence to four years.
The researcher held the position of distributary during the 2014 to 2018 academic years, which would allow him to interact with the younger seminarians, carrying out organizational, support and disciplinary tasks, for which reason his bedroom was on the floor together with the minor inmates.
According to the sentence, in 2017 the harassment began by means of caresses, kisses, sending messages inside a book, by hand or under the door urging him to have oral sex with him, to which the minor always refused.
He also sent him photos of his genitals, groped the young man several times, and urged him to do the same with his.
After the trial, the Provincial Court considered that the seminarian was responsible for a crime of sexual abuse and sentenced him to two years in prison, probation for five and disqualification for three years from performing any job that involves direct contact with minors. .
In principle, the defendant was acquitted of two other charges, a restraining order was imposed on him for two years and the payment of a thousand euros to the parents for the moral damage caused.
The Prosecutor’s Office filed an appeal before the Criminal Chamber of the TSJC and as a result of the fact that it was estimated, the prison sentence increased from the aforementioned two years to four.
The Court took into account to situate the sentence in two years in the fact that the defendant never used violence or intimidation and that when the victim showed her rejection she did not try to force him, which he attributed to the fear inspired by the power that the person investigated had in the Seminary.
Indeed, the Supreme Court concludes that the defendant abused his position of superiority to commit the denounced facts and therefore defrauded the trust placed in him by those responsible for the Seminary.
Given the entry into force of the legislation that repeals the crime of sexual abuse and equates it to assault, the defense considered that an acquittal should be made, to which the Public Prosecutor responded that in this particular case there was no difference between the previous and new legislation, which now supports the TS that maintains the sentence of four years instead of the initial two.