The Criminal Chamber has confirmed the sentence of 48 years in prison imposed on a doctor from Primary Care of a Health Center in Los Llanos de Aridane (Santa Cruz de Tenerife) for sexual abuse of 10 patients.
The court has dismissed the appeal filed by the convicted against the sentence of the Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife that, in addition to the prison sentence for 12 crimes of sexual abuse, he agreed to his disqualification from practicing the medical profession or any other health profession during the time of the sentence.
It also sentenced him to five years of supervised release specifically aimed at participation in sexual education training programsand the payment of compensation to the victims of 42,000 euros for civil liability.
The Chamber considers that the proven facts of the judgment appealed prove “a continuous episode of sexual abuse by the defendant, a primary care physician, who, under the pretext of verifying medical care, consisted of examining the women who came to his office, not precisely, in many cases, for of a gynecological nature, but simply for prescriptions for ailments completely foreign to any medical examination of their most intimate parts, he required them to undress, and he inserted his fingers into their vagina or touched their breasts, without any medical reason, taking advantage of his situation in the consultation, and in short, taking advantage of his position of superiority conferred by the medical condition of his profession”.
It affirms that the evidence, which has been questioned by the appellant, has been “overwhelming” and is explained by the judgment under appeal, in an exemplary manner, analyzing all the details of the statements of the complainants, so that such incriminating statements reinforce each other , offering a very rich evidence table in details, and recounting all the aspects of their doctor-patient relationship, details the Supreme Court in a statement.
A relationship that was –as the Court explains– “a subterfuge to create a false environment of medical exploration, when what it was really about was a method of obtaining by this means a comfortable, suitable and fraudulent means to violate the sexual freedom of the women who came to his consultation , trusting in the medical praxis of the physician who attended them”.
Thus rejects the convict’s argument that he obtained the women’s consent“because such consent was not at all to carry out an act with sexual content, but rather a medical act”.
In his sentence, a speech by Judge Julián Sánchez Melgar, he replies that, as the prosecutor says, the consent or non-opposition of women to the practice of vaginal or mammary examinations “must be understood as non-existent due to vitiation, as it is obtained by taking advantage of the person responsible for a situation of superiority that restricted the freedom of the victims”.
THERE WAS NO CONSENT
In this case, the Chamber specifies, “one cannot speak in any way of consent regarding sexual matters or content, but rather the provision of a medical act, which, on the other hand, was unnecessary, and imposed by the accused, under the pretext of an exploration that turned out to be iniquitous”.
For the Chamber, the incriminating statement of the injured parties appears enriched and strengthened by the reference testimonies of the companions in some cases and by the reciprocal testimonies of the complainants themselves, as well as by the forensic and psychological expert opinions that were ratified in the oral trial, and documentary evidence, especially that consisting of the medical records of the affected patients.
The magistrates indicate that, as the fiscal Ministeryit is relevant that it is a high number of patients, all reporting a very similar modus operandi and in which the indication by the doctor of the need to perform a vaginal examination and/or breast examination is appreciated, even though in many cases the ailments presented by the patients had no relation to the genital apparatus.
On the other hand, it indicates that the forensic medical reports and the statements of other doctors indicate in many of the cases that the examination was not justified, which is also corroborated to the extent that it was not recorded by the accused in the clinical history.
