Accused of raping a 12-year-old girl, a man has been acquitted

A young man who was a couple with a 12-year-old girl in San Vicente del Raspeig was absolved of sexually assaulting her in Alicante Juvenile Court No. 2. The man, who was 17 years old at the time of the reported incidents in 2023, was facing a request from the Prosecutor’s Office for nearly three years of confined confinement. He has since been acquitted.

The ruling has established that both parties engaged in sexual intercourse with vaginal penetration. However, it does not establish that the defendant, who was represented by attorney José Luis Sánchez Calvo, used “intimidation or violence” or that the interaction was “without consent,” as the victim did not disclose the alleged assault until one year had passed.

The ruling also notes that the young man was four and a half years older than the younger girl. Although the two exhibited a clear distinction in physical development, “there is no evidence that such a difference also existed in the psychological realm.”

The facts that were established in the ruling are dated back to September 2022. The minor was involved in a romantic relationship with a 12-year-old female. They engaged in sexual intercourse that involved vaginal penetration at one point while they were in her family residence. Conversely, the magistrate maintains that intimidation or violence were not employed during the incident.

According to the ruling issued by Juvenile Court No. 2 of Alicante, they terminated their relationship as a result of this purported abuse; however, they re-established it six months later and continued to engage in consensual sexual intercourse until the separation in October of the same year.

A complaint that was filed after the fact

In the same month, the girl and her mother visited the police station to report the purported abuse. She reported that her partner proposed having intercourse with her while they were alone at her partner’s parents’ home. She declined, requesting that he cease. However, the girl informed the officers that he persisted in his refusal to relinquish her and pursue another woman. He ultimately forcibly removed her trousers, and they engaged in sexual intercourse.

The ruling asserts that the minor informed her mother the day following the incident that she had engaged in sexual intercourse with her lover, but that she had not been coerced into doing so. The couple separated in October 2022, one month after the alleged maltreatment, as per the advice of her parents. The young man apologised to her parents six months later, and they consented to the resumption of their relationship.

According to the complainant, they engaged in “consensual” sexual relations during the eight-month duration of the second phase of this relationship, which concluded in October 2023. It concluded with four distinct versions of the narrative; however, the precise rationale for this ending remains uncertain.

The mother stated that they requested it after discovering that the initial relationship was coerced. In the interim, the man who was exonerated claimed that they parted ways due to the minor discovering that he was dating other women. The victim presented two alternatives: initially, she expressed her fatigue with the relationship; however, she later disclosed that she had forbidden her partner from recording the consensual sex out of concern for the potential virality of the images. The defendant’s phone did not contain any recordings, as indicated in the sentence, according to the Civil Guard.