The First Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas has judged this Tuesday Mario MG. as the author of an alleged continued crime of sexual assault against his stepdaughter under 13 years of age.
The Prosecutor's Office is asking for twelve years in prison for him, with the accessory of absolute disqualification during the time of the sentence, supervised release, a restraining order of more than 500 meters and the prohibition of communicating by any type of means in 20 years, as well as participation in sexual education programs for eight years. In addition, he must compensate the minor with 15,000 euros.
The events date back to the years 2016 and 2017 when the defendant lived with the victim and her mother in up to three homes in the city of Arrecife. Mario MG. maintained a relationship with the minor's mother for a long period of time.
According to the statement of the minor's mother, the alleged scenes of continued sexual assault were revealed in May 2020. In that year, the family rented a villa for a family celebration. The whole family attended the meeting, as well as a friend of Mario and his minor daughter. At one point in the night, Mario fell asleep on the sofa where that girl was also. Some screams woke up the people who were in the house and the young woman uttered that Mario was sexually touching her. This is how the family has narrated it and the accused himself has acknowledged it.
His stepdaughter was at that moment in another room with her mother. That scene, according to the psychologist who treats the girl today, was the turning point for her. "She didn't want to go home with him there again, so I decided that I was going to get her a psychologist, I told him, he took his things and left," the mother reveals in the trial. Two months later, the girl confessed to her mother that she had suffered years of abuse by the one who was then her partner.
"She started to tremble, she had never told me what he did to her, she was afraid because this man took pictures of her, recorded her and also me," she added. Likewise, the minor's mother narrated that, because of what happened, her daughter has tried to commit suicide on several occasions, has suffered several self-harming attempts and spent a month in the hospital after seeing him in the street.
Regarding what happened, the psychologist who has been attending to the minor for two years, as a witness and expert, reveals that "the severity of what she verbalizes is compatible with her physical and verbal symptomatology."
With the screen covering his face, Mario MG. listened to the testimony of the girl, who had to answer the questions of the magistrates, the Prosecutor's Office, the popular accusation and the defense of the accused. "With the episode of the villa I felt that frustration that it had happened to another girl and that I had not said it," she began, "but it gave me the strength to try to say it."
The victim revealed that everything started "as a game." At that moment, the alleged aggressor took advantage of the time when the mother was working or sleeping to sexually assault her. "When the alarm clock rang, I was paralyzed and didn't know what to do. It was like I was dreaming, a nightmare. Then I would go back to sleep, I wanted to be well in school," the minor revealed visibly affected. "It wasn't until I was ten years old that I began to understand something of what was happening," she said.
Among other things, the man allegedly touched her genitals, even inserting, "on multiple occasions", his fingers into her vagina. In other cases, the episodes also contained penetration without protection and in others he licked her genitals when they were alone. "He recorded me because the mobile camera lit up. I didn't say anything out of fear, but he told me not to tell my mother or he was going to upload images of her naked to the internet," she explained.
The two experts who listened to the girl's testimony made a report in which they gave credibility to her words. In addition, they stated that it was possible that until the episode of the villa in Playa Blanca her brain had tried to block the events and that in the face of a similar event she had remembered what happened. "There is a logical structure, many details and facts in specific moments and places," the experts assured.
Mario MG. still has the images of his ex-partner naked on his mobile, as he has confirmed before the Court. However, he denies that he sexually assaulted his stepdaughter and that he recorded her.
Meanwhile, the private prosecution, exercised by the victim's family, requests for the accused a sentence of 12 years in prison, a restraining order of 500 meters for ten years, as well as the prohibition of communicating with her. At the same time as 20,000 euros in compensation.