A 60-year-old man has been sentenced to five years in jail by the Alicante Court of Appeals for raping a 16-year-old girl in Villajoyosa while she was drunk. The event took place on October 12th, 2019, after the two people met at a nightclub in this town. The sentencing says that it is clear that the young woman drank a lot of alcohol and took a white powdery drug whose nature could not be ascertained.
The court decided that the victim was in such bad shape that she couldn’t have given legitimate permission for sex. This was clearly shown during the trial when security camera footage was shown from the crime scene and other places where the perpetrator and victim were that night, like near the Guardia Civil barracks and the TRAM station.
The young woman went out drinking with several high school friends that night. She had at least five rum and cokes. She kept drinking at the bar and said she had done a line of cocaine. The court found that the victim was “dazed and disoriented, with diminished intellectual and volitional capacities” because he had been drinking. This official story says that even though she was sick, the defendant grabbed her arm and insisted on carrying her home. There, he took her to a bedroom, took off her pants and knickers, threw her onto a bed and had intercourse with her without a condom.
The offender said in court that the relationship was consensual, but the judges decided that he took advantage of the victim’s high level of intoxication to take away her sexual freedom. The court said that this status made it impossible for the young woman to give her consent freely. “The defendant was fully aware of the girl’s intoxicated state and, far from helping and protecting a 16-year-old girl, he sexually assaulted her,” the ruling says. The court says that the security camera footage is completely clear and shows “without a doubt” how the young woman was at the time, which is something that the defendant had to know from the start.
Cameras for security
Reports say that after exiting the building, the attack started on a bench at the town’s train station, where surveillance cameras saw him touching her crotch. He then brought her to his house with the plan of having sex with her.
“The victim’s intoxicated state made her unable to consent to sexual relations with a man she did not know, having met him that same night, although their ages were more than 43 years apart,” the court said.
So, the court says, “The victim did not agree to the sexual contact, and she could not resist it because she was dazed and semi-conscious from being drunk.” This situation rendered the young woman fragile. “She was not in control of herself, which made it very hard for her to make decisions. The defendant used this situation to satisfy his sexual desires,” the ruling says.
The sentence, which is not final and can be appealed to the High Court of Justice, gives the accused an extenuating circumstance of undue delays. This is because the trial took place six years after the events, and the case was simple.
The decision further says that the victim must pay €10,000 in damages that are not money. The judges also found that the victim had post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of what happened. This left her with psychological effects that made her feel anxious in a mild, intermittent way. A few of her friends who were present at the trial said that the day after the crime, they got a WhatsApp message from the victim telling them what had happened. They said she was “ruined, demoralised, and devastated.”
Author: Derek Appleton
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