According to the information contained in the verdict, the eldest of the daughters, after disclosing the facts to a friend, received an immediate reaction: the mother of this friend advised the minor to go to court. Subsequently, one of the girls experienced an anxiety crisis, which led to her being transferred to a health center where she received medical attention and was later transferred to the Virgen de Valme de Dos Hermanas Hospital along with her sister. This incident triggered police intervention and culminated in the arrest of the father on June 4, 2023. From that moment it was agreed that he would be taken to a temporary prison, notified and without the possibility of bail, a situation that still continues.
As Europa Press reports with documents from the Communications Office of the Supreme Court of Andalusia (TSJA), the Civil and Criminal Chamber of this Supreme Court confirmed in full the sentences of fifteen years in prison for the father and more than fourteen years for the mother, both accused of persistent sexual assaults on their three daughters, who were minors at the time of the events. The ruling relates to a series of behaviors that occurred during an unspecified period between 2021 and 2023 when the family lived together in the family home.
The court document indicates that the father took advantage of moments when he was alone with one of the daughters and engaged in sexual behavior under the explicit threat of sexually assaulting her. The court documented various forms of sexual assault, including touching and penetration, directed at minors. The judgment also states that the mother, after being informed of the situation by the girls, did not act to prevent the continuity of events and, through her passivity, facilitated a recurrence.
The judgment was particularly detailed regarding the involvement of both parents in episodes that aggravated the situation: both, on separate occasions, forced the eldest daughter to have sexual encounters with them in the master bedroom of the house in order to satisfy the adults’ sexual desires.
The criminal proceedings began after the complaint became known and were processed after the friend of the eldest daughter and the mother of that friend asked the minors to report their situation to the authorities. According to Europa Press, this allowed the young women access to medical care and intervention by security forces.
The Third Department of the Provincial Court of Seville, which investigated the case, concluded that the father was responsible for two consecutive sexual assaults involving carnal contact with a minor under 16 years of age and imposed a prison sentence of fifteen years. The mother was found criminally responsible for two consecutive offenses of the same nature and sentenced to fourteen years, three months and one day. In addition, both parents must jointly compensate the three victims for moral damages of 15,000 euros each.
In view of the conviction, the defense lawyers filed an appeal. As Europa Press reports, the arguments in the father’s case included allegations of violation of the presumption of innocence and an error in the assessment of evidence, as well as the request for exemption from criminal liability due to his low intellectual level and the presence of an alleged impulse control disorder or one of the so-called paraphilic sexual disorders.
The TSJA addressed these allegations in detail in the resolution. Regarding the father’s mental state, the court emphasized that the person in question does not have a psychiatric pathology recognized in international classification systems that is compatible with the crimes being prosecuted. Although the inmate was self-diagnosed in prison with an adaptive reaction, medical documentation indicated that he had the level of awareness necessary to understand the illegality of his behavior. Another report from the prison health service indicated that the defendant had a low IQ and difficulty in forming logical judgments, which the TSJA described as a cognitive deficit and a certain tendency to primitivism in personality. However, the resolution emphasized that these circumstances did not prevent him from understanding the illegality of the events.
In relation to the mother, the defense argued that she acted out of fear of her partner and that this fear justified the criminal events going unreported or dismissed. However, the TSJA rejected this argument. According to the court’s criteria, for fear to be considered a defense, it must be a real, actual fear, so intense as to nullify the person’s ability to make decisions, and resulting from an accredited threat comparable to or greater than the harm caused. According to the High Court, the argument that the defendant feared for her integrity if she did not comply with her partner’s sexual demands contradicts the fact that, had she resorted to the judicial or police system, she would have received immediate protection for both herself and her daughters.
The judgment of the TSJA rejects the application of the defenses in both cases and dismisses the appeals lodged against the judgment of the Court of Seville, consolidating both the penalties imposed and the obligation to provide financial compensation to the three victims. As Europa Press detailed, the process remained fully ratified.
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