The Supreme Court has upheld a 10-year prison sentence imposed on a basketball instructor, aged 20, at a school in Santa Cruz de Tenerife for raping a student seven years his junior.
The judges rejected the appeal filed by the young man, ruling that it was not appropriate to either acquit him or reduce his sentence. They emphasized that in this case “the minor was very young–13 years old–“ and the context of the relationship was “particularly significant given that it occurred between a student from the school and a sports instructor, implying a much greater educational and personal development in the latter compared to the student”.
According to the ruling, accessed by Europa Press, the events date back to July 2018, when the accused was assisting as a basketball coach. The young man –who was 20 years old at the time– contacted the minor via Instagram and provided her with his phone number to then, “without concealing his true identity”, “convince her to meet alone at the end of that month or early August” on the outskirts of the city.
During the first meeting, the accused touched the student inappropriately. In the second, “he engaged in two complete sexual relationships with the minor”. As stated in the sentence, the accused “took advantage of the young age and lack of maturity” of the girl, “without any evidence of the use of violence or intimidation”.
Although later the young man even asked her to send him naked photos, she refused. The minor’s father reported the incident to the authorities in December of that year.
Lack of Maturity Seen
The Provincial Court sentenced the young man to 10 years in prison for a sustained offense of sexual abuse with penetration and ordered him to pay a compensation of €6,000 for the emotional damage caused. He was also banned from approaching the victim for 13 years. The Canary Islands High Court upheld the decision.
The convicted individual, dissatisfied with the sentence, took his case to the Supreme Court alleging a violation of his right to the presumption of innocence and misapplication of the Penal Code.
The young man argued that the age difference between him and the minor was not “particularly relevant” and insisted that there were “sufficient data to establish their proximity in maturity level” that were not analysed. He pointed out that the girl “presented herself on social media as older than her actual age” and preferred “boys older than her age”.
Thus, the defense sought the application of the Penal Code clause stipulating that the freely given consent of a minor under 16 or the maturity level proximity would exempt them from criminal responsibility in cases of sexual abuse.
The judges pointed out that Spanish criminal law does not establish a specific age range in which this clause should apply — as it does, for example, in France–. “In our Penal Code, the focus should be on age proximity and maturity level, with the latter requiring an examination of growth, maturation, and learning,” they note. They maintained that in this case, there was no proximity in maturity because he was the coach and she was the student.
Supports the Minor’s Testimony
In his appeal, the young man also claimed that the minor’s testimony contained “significant contradictions.” “The minor’s version is not very credible,” he said, criticizing the failure of a forensic doctor to examine the girl once the complaint was filed.
In the ruling, authored by magistrate Eduardo de Porres, the court explained that although “there were indeed some inaccuracies” in the minor’s testimony, this can be explained by the fact that “victims of abuse or sexual assaults, especially when they are minors and occurrences happen on different dates, times, and places, do not always retain all the specific details and circumstances in their memory with absolute precision.”
“In this case, and fundamentally, the minor recounted the different encounters, validated by various witnesses, asserting with precision and decisively that there was, at the very least, one complete sexual relationship with penetration. There were no contradictions in this regard,” stated the judges.
