The Criminal Chamber of the High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands has dismissed the request to reduce the sentence of a man, residing in Arrecife, sentenced to twelve years in prison for sexually assaulting and continuously his eleven-year-old daughter.
This resolution may be appealed in cassation, which must be formalized before the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court within five days from the notification of the judgment.
The defense filed an appeal against the conviction, issued on November 18, 2022, by the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas. In it, the appellant had been sentenced to 12 years in prison and absolute disqualification for a continued crime of sexual abuse with penetration with the aggravating circumstance of taking advantage.
In the appeal filed by the defendant's defense, he alleged, "without any procedural support", the violation of the right to effective judicial protection, the violation of the presumption of innocence and error in the assessment of the evidence, as well as the violation of a process that complies with all guarantees.
In addition, the Provincial Court agreed to the deprivation of parental authority over the victim, for a maximum of six years or until its extinction. In this line, the Chamber also prohibited him from approaching the victim, at a distance of no less than 500 meters from the person, their home, the study center or any place where they could be found for 20 years.
The defendant was sentenced to the penalty of special disqualification for any profession or trade, whether paid or unpaid, that involves regular and direct contact with minors for a period of 16 years. As well as compensating the victim with 20,000 euros for moral damages.
Start of the procedure
The procedure was initiated in 2017 by the Court of Instruction number 4 of Arrecife and then continued in number 1. The convicted person had sexually abused his daughter, "acting at all times with the intention of satisfying his libidinous desires, taking advantage of the relationship of superiority".
He had subjected the minor "to numerous acts of a sexual nature, which began with touching under the clothes of both her breasts and her genitals and which continued with continuous sexual relaxations", according to the background facts collected in the judgment.
"The abusive event is not an isolated event in the life of the minor, it fits into her daily life", the judgment emphasized, "the convicted person made use of the game, affection and his condition of superiority".
"He never realized that he made me bleed", declared the victim, who at the time of the rapes was 11 years old
"He came, slept with me and what happened? Well, what happened every night, one rape after another, after another, and so on until he fell asleep", the victim said in court. "He never realized that he made me bleed", she added. "When he turns off the TV, dark, dark, dark, everything again".
The minor had told the situation to two friends, 11 years old, her cousin and later her aunt.