The Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife has just sentenced a man to one year and ten months in prison and to pay 18,000 euros in compensation to a woman whom he sexually assaulted during a music festival in Adeje, in 2019.
The defendant will not be able to get closer to the young woman than 500 meters for three years and is acquitted of the charge of injuries, as reflected in the sentence, to which Efe has had access.
The Prosecutor requested four and a half years in prison, ten years away from the victim, supervised release for another five, compensation of 12,100 euros and, for the crime of injuries, a fine of two hundred euros.
The private accusationfor its part, requested eight years in prison, ten years of removal, 500 euros for the charge of injuries and 30,000 for the physical and moral damages suffered.
The man admitted the crime of sexual assault but asked that the mitigating factors of intoxication due to drug and narcotic consumption, undue delays and reparation of damage be taken into account, having deposited the required 18,000 before the trial, the only argument that was accepted. .
The two met during an electronic music festival that took place in August 2019.
Around 11:00 p.m., they separated from the group of friends they were in and went to the urinals, so the man did it outside and the girl did it in a portable toilet.
When the young woman tried to leave, the man pushed her, closed the door and then lifted her clothes and touched her several times, without it being clear that he acted without the complainant’s consent.
But the girl refused to continue, she told him to stop and let her out, while the convicted man masturbated and caused small injuries that did not require any healing, beyond initial medical assistance.
During the judgmentheld a few weeks ago, the man partially acknowledged the facts and apologized to the victim, and previously deposited the aforementioned 18,000 euros in the Court’s account.
The Court concludes that the man used his greater physical size to carry out this attack but also admits that there are no witnesses to what happened inside the cabin and considers it insufficient to impose a sentence based solely on the woman’s story, in which detect “ambiguities and omissions”.
Their friends indicated that before the events occurred they saw how there was a certain affinity between them, they danced and laughed all the time and they did not detect any attitude of rejection. In fact, they kissed, as she admitted.
The sentence points out that there is no evidence that the accused used violence and reproaches the young woman for lying when saying that she had a boyfriend, when the truth is that the person she identified as such denied having a romantic relationship with her.
The experts detected that this event caused certain psychological damage to the young woman, which resulted in anxiety and suicidal thoughts, symptoms that are compatible with having suffered an accident of this type.
Although the events took place before the approval of the Law of only yes it is yes, the sentence is based on it as it is more favorable to the accused because it is considered that this is a sexual assault without carnal access, punishable in this legislation with between one and four years.
