The Supreme Court has ratified the sentence of 15 years in prison imposed by the Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife to a man for a continued crime of sexual assault on a minor, the daughter of her partner, since she was 12 years old.
The Criminal Chamber dismisses the appeal filed by the convicted person and maintains the penalties by ruling out the retroactive application of Law 10/2022 on the Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom –‘only if it is yes’– as more beneficial.
Thus, the Supreme Court argues that the precepts of the previous Penal Code applicable to the crime with the considered aggravating circumstances provided for a prison sentence ranging from 13 years and 6 months to 15 years, and criminal continuity determined the imposition of a sentence of 14 years and 3 months to 15 years, which could also be increased to the lower half of the upper sentence, that is, up to 18 years and 9 months.
It also adds that in accordance with the provisions contained in Organic Law 10/2022, of September 6, on the comprehensive guarantee of sexual freedom, the facts are considered to constitute a crime of sexual assault on a minor under 16 years of age, for which reason the arc penological of the applicable prison sentence would be 12 years and 6 months to 15 years.
With criminal continuity it would determine the imposition of a sentence of 13 years and 9 months to 15 years that could be increased to the lower half of the upper sentence, that is, up to 18 years and 9 months.
In this case, adds the Supreme Court, the Provincial Court, “duely reasoning, decided to impose a prison sentence of 15 years, which, according to both regulations, coincides with the maximum limit of the penalty indicated for the criminal type, without make use of the power to increase it within the lower half of the upper penalty, in accordance with the provision contained in the last paragraph of article 74 of the Penal Code”.
The events occurred for almost two years and between two and three times a week and the man, in order to commit the sexual assaults, threatened the minor that he would leave the sentimental relationship with her mother. –which would force them to return to Ecuador at the end of the family reunification– and that he would do the same with his little brother.
