A key witness refused to testify this Wednesday in the trial for the alleged sexual assaults suffered for years by a girl, by the man who was her mother's partner. "I am going to exercise my right not to testify, because I am a blood brother," he told the magistrates, referring to the accused. They have recalled that the law establishes that a direct relative "has no obligation to testify against the defendant", but if he does so he is "obliged to tell the truth, and may incur a crime" otherwise.
The importance of this witness is that two people have testified during the trial that the accused confessed at least partially to the acts he is accused of. First, the minor's mother has stated that when her daughter told her about the alleged sexual assaults she had been suffering for three years, she called the brother of her former partner, among other things.
"My brother has gone crazy. I'm taking a plane and going to Lanzarote. Do what you have to do," she claims he told her. Later, in another subsequent conversation, he told her that "he had confessed something" when he contacted him. Specifically, she stated that he spoke to her about "touching", although not that "he had consummated" it.
A National Police officer who testified as a witness, and who took the first statement from the mother and the victim, and who also took a statement from the accused's brother, agreed with the same version. "He told me on two occasions, when I called him and later at the police station, that he had spoken to his brother and he had admitted a little to the acts he was accused of." In the police report, he noted that his literal expression was that "there was some touching".
In addition, the police officer also confirmed another part of the mother's statement, who explained that when she was at the police station filing the complaint, she received several calls from her partner, and ended up answering at the agent's indication. "He was nervous, crying and telling her to forgive him," the police officer stated, who heard that conversation.
Both have stated that in that call, the accused said that he had taken "20 diazepam". "I was worried that he would take his own life," stated the national police officer, who explained that he activated the emergency services and that an ambulance went to his home, which was in charge of taking him to the hospital.
"He told me not to let him die," said his ex-partner and mother of the victim: "He told me not to report him, that we had to talk, that I should listen to him first." In addition, she said that the day before, when the events came to light, he threatened to jump off the Risco. "With those attitudes, he was showing that he was guilty," the mother considers.
No experts or witnesses for the defense
In addition to the mother and the police officer, during the first day of the trial only five other people have testified, all of them experts who have agreed that the minor's story is "credible". As for the girl, who was between 10 and 12 years old when the events occurred and is now 16, she has been excused from testifying at the trial and the recording of the statement she gave two years ago, during the investigation of the case, has been reproduced.
As for the accused, he will be the last to testify and will do so this Thursday, when the trial is scheduled to end. In fact, only his testimony and the final conclusions are missing, since his defense has not provided any experts or witnesses. And the person who was summoned and could have testified in his favor, his brother, has not done so, exercising his right not to testify, which is done to avoid harming the defendant.
As for the experts, the first to testify were two psychologists who were commissioned to write a report within this case. Both have confirmed that the victim suffers, among other things, from "low self-esteem, a tendency to school problems and an adaptive disorder of a depressive type", adding that it is a "symptomatology compatible with sexual assault".
In addition, they have stressed that her story meets "the necessary criteria to be credible", stressing that the fact that at times she forgot things or changed details precisely gives credibility to her complaint. "Credible stories are disorganized. They go from one side to the other, because memories are being generated," they explained.
"It is fully compatible with the injuries we observed"
The two forensic doctors who performed a physical examination of the minor, who was then 12 years old, have also testified and have confirmed that she had "a torn hymen" and that "the tear was old".
"What she told us is fully compatible with the injuries we observed," they told the court. Thus, although they have explained that there is no scientific way to determine either the date or the exact reason "for the harmful result", it is "compatible" with the sexual assaults that the minor recounted.
"In view of what she says, the way she narrates it, sequentially and progressively, and how she presents the facts, that argument gains in reliability," they added. In addition, they have also confirmed the diagnosis of the symptoms presented by the girl, which correspond to a "post-traumatic stress disorder".
Finally, the psychologist who has been treating the victim for years has testified. "All the indicators in the tests show us that the minor always tells the truth, and I also base this on my professional experience and the years in which I have treated the minor, and I have seen her evolution," she stated.
In addition, in response to the defendant's lawyer, who asked about other possible causes, she insisted that "there is no other cause that justifies these disorders" that she suffers from and that "all the symptoms she manifests are in relation to this event".
She even explained the "brutal setback" suffered by the minor when the accused was released, after having spent some time in pre-trial detention after the complaint was filed.
"We cannot forget that from the age of 10 to the age of 16 that she is now, she has not been able to live what she was supposed to. If this process had ended earlier, she could have started to overcome this sooner," she said in reference to the trial. "Hopefully this will remain in this stage of her life and not be transferred to her adult life," she added, reiterating that she still "does not have psychological medical discharge" and that they will have to continue working on it.
In addition, she was adamant in stating that "it is not possible" for the girl to be "making something like this up", maintaining it for years, and that she is managing to manipulate the result of all the tests that are performed on her.
"You don't think you have a monster at home"
As for the mother, she has also recounted the ordeal they have continued to suffer since they reported the events three years ago, the day after her daughter told her about it. "We have changed address twice, to avoid contact with the people from that time. We, the victims, are the ones who have had to lock ourselves up," she lamented.
In addition, during the trial, another consequence that victims can suffer has also been highlighted: guilt. According to her statement, the day her daughter told her about the alleged abuse she had been suffering for three years, that was what she expressed to her. "She burst into tears, hugged me and said: 'Mommy, I'm so sorry'."
And the girl, in the recorded statement that has been heard during the trial, expressed something similar when talking about her mother. "She blamed herself, but she is not to blame for having met someone like that," the minor said.
Regarding whether she had any suspicions at any time about what was happening, the mother has assured that she did not, although "with distance you see things that don't add up". "When you are in love with someone, you don't think you have a monster at home," she stated.
She only recounts one episode in which another of her daughters, younger, asked her sister in front of her why she locked herself in the bathroom with her father. The girl's response was that he was giving her massages, and that did generate a reaction from her mother.
When she asked him about the issue, she claims that his response was "disproportionate, aggressive". There, just as the girl had stated during the investigation, she stated that she suffered abuse from her partner. The defendant's lawyer has tried to ask several questions about why she did not report it, but the magistrate has been stopping them all, pointing out that it was not what was being judged.
And he also stopped the lawyer when he insisted several times on questions about who washed the clothes at home and if she never noticed any residue on the girl's underwear, or if she did not see blood on one of the occasions in which the victim recounts that she bled. "I wasn't looking for something that I didn't even imagine," the mother replied.
In the interrogation of the witness, the defendant's lawyer has also tried to suggest that the girl, who was between 10 and 12 years old when the events occurred, had relationships with boys. Of her questions, the mother has only confirmed that she once arranged to go to the beach with a friend, also a minor, and that they were there for an hour and she took her there by car.
The lawyer has also asked if "it is not true" that she was a girl who was "rowdy, disobedient and a bad student", which has been flatly denied by the mother, who has insisted that her problems began "after this situation".
"Would you say that your daughter has had her childhood, puberty and adolescence stolen?", her lawyer has asked her, who is exercising the private prosecution on her behalf. "Totally," the mother has replied.
