The Provincial Court of Santa Cruz Tenerife has sentenced a man to six months in prison for considering him the author of a crime against moral integrity for having hurled homophobic insults at his neighbors for four years in order to humiliate and denigrate them.
He is also imposed with the prohibition of communicating or addressing the complainants who are a couple and live in the same building for a year and a half.
He must pay each of the victims 3,000 euros for moral damages, he is acquitted of the charge of threats and the undue delays are taken into account in the sentence.
As a proven fact, it is considered that the accused, who lives in an apartment located in front of the complainants' apartment, separated by a small patio, due to the disturbances caused during the execution of works or parties from 2016 to 2020, humiliated and denigrated them.
To this end, he continually and publicly uttered against both of them "all kinds of expressions with negative connotations towards their sexual orientation."
The Court dismisses the hate crime
The Court believes that the accused was not seeking to discriminate against the neighbors because of their sexual orientation, but rather wanted to undermine their dignity due to the neighborhood problems he had with them, given that the disagreements arose from the disturbances caused by the works.
To rule out the hate crime, it was also taken into account that the accused has not starred in other episodes of a homophobic nature with more people, nor on social networks or belonged to any group that denoted animosity towards a specific group.
In short, it could not be proven that he had acted out of his "animosity, resentment, antipathy or hatred towards these people because of their homosexuality", the ruling indicates, which is different from what happens with the expressions used that, according to the ruling, "have a clear vexatious and degrading content" based on their sexual condition and that had been used for some time.
This attitude produced in the victims, "impotence, restlessness and insecurity", to the point of being afraid to go outside, the sentence states.
The Prosecutor's Office considered that in principle it was a hate crime and requested a year and a half in prison, a fine of 1,800 euros, a prohibition to communicate with the complainants for two years and another four years of disqualification to perform any teaching work.
Alternatively, it suggested that it could be a crime against moral integrity with the aggravating circumstance of sexual orientation or homophobia, for which it requested two years and a restraining order during that time, so he would have to leave the building.
This is the third conviction issued by the Provincial Court this year for crimes related to homophobia.
