The Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands has confirmed the sentence of the First Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas, which sentenced a masseur to seven years in prison for sexually abusing a client in Puerto del Carmen.
The events date back to June 23, 2021, when a woman hired a massage session for herself and two others for her husband and 15-year-old daughter at a hairdresser's in the tourist town of Tías.
At one point, the masseur asked the client to take off her clothes and put on a paper panty, then began to massage her back and at one point, "while the complainant was face down, he directed the massage towards her buttocks and inserted his fingers into her vagina and continued with her buttocks."
After that, the sentence states that he asked her to turn around and lie face up, put a towel over her belly and another towel over her eyes, massaged her and "then began to massage her pubis and inserted his fingers into her vagina again, further in." At that moment, the complainant noticed that the masseur had an erection and she asked him to stop the massage.
Meanwhile, the masseur NFLO asked her to calm down and left the room. Shortly after, the victim left the massage room, trembling and agitated. Her husband was already waiting in the hairdresser's and she told him that she felt violated. After that, she explained that he had put his fingers in her vagina and the husband confronted the convicted man and warned him that he was going to call the police. At that moment, NFLO ran out of the hairdresser's.
The Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands concludes that the victim's testimony has external elements that corroborate its credibility. In addition, it confirms that there are no "alterations or vagueness" in her speech, throughout the successive statements she has had to make, nor internally between them.
The Chamber understands that the judgment of the Provincial Court assessed that the victim's testimony was "credible" and also "reliable." In addition, it added that the testimony of the husband, who saw the state in which his wife left the massage room, and of the Civil Guard officers who came to the scene, is added to the facts.
Meanwhile, it adds the different statements of the masseur, first refusing to speak, and then giving some "implausible" statements. In this line, the TSJC highlights that while there are peripheral elements that corroborate the victim's statement, there are no elements that exculpate the accused.