The First Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas has judged this Tuesday morning in Lanzarote Juan José Saavedra, accused of a presumed crime of sexual assault against an eight-year-old girl in a garage in Tahíche.
The reported events date back to an unidentified day between the months of May and June 2017. Juan José Saavedra had maintained a friendship for years with the girl's father. One night, he called him to ask if he could sleep at his house because he had nowhere to stay. According to what he declared in court, Saavedra had returned to the island from Fuerteventura to attend to a request from the Civil Guard for a complaint filed for another alleged case of sexual abuse of minors unrelated to this case.
Testimonial evidence
That night Saavedra slept in the garage of the house, as he himself stated during his statement in the trial. It was the only night he slept in that family home. According to the events reported by the minor and subscribed by the Public Prosecutor's Office, the eight-year-old girl had stayed to sleep in the garage of her father's house, accompanied by her siblings and step-siblings. Her father stated that he spent the night in the main house, while the accused indicated that he also did so in that same garage.
According to the victim's statement, the accused Juan José Saavedra allegedly changed mattresses during the night, while she was sleeping, approached the girl, put his hand inside her pants, groped the minor's genital area and put his fingers in the eight-year-old girl's vagina, which led her to wake up in pain. According to the minor's testimony, reproduced in court, after fleeing the situation and going to the bathroom, she returned to bed, "hoping that he had already left." At that moment, Juan José Saavedra allegedly took the girl's hand and took it to his penis to masturbate.
"I was fine until I was eleven, when it started to affect me," she said. The girl took several years to tell her family about the events, while she has stated that she continued to coincide with him in her father's house, in meetings and family events. "I told my best friend first, who then helped me tell my father," she said. The father confessed that at first "he didn't want to believe it" and asked the girl several times if she was sure of what had happened, and even questioned whether it was a dream. At that time the father did not file a complaint.
The following year, already in high school, the teenager's tutor discovered that she was absent from the classroom for several minutes on different occasions and decided to go look for her one of the times. According to the teacher's testimony, when she arrived at the bathroom, the girl was in the bathroom, crying and sitting on the floor. At that moment and after asking her several questions, she managed to get the minor to confess part of what had happened. "It was difficult for her to communicate and she asked her questions, but she was unable to articulate a word," she added. She only answered yes or no. It was then that she informed the school's management, her family and wrote a report. As a result of the teacher's actions, her mother discovered the events and the legal case began.
While she was in the classroom, the minor presented "demotivation, low mood and physical performance," the tutor explained. Thus, her mother has added that "she is having a very bad time" and that "she still wakes up crying at night."
The accused has denied the facts and has stated that he "slept on a mattress on the floor" and that at five in the morning, when the girl's father got up to go to work, he showered and he also left the garage.
Expert evidence
The trial has had four experts who have intervened in this case. Three of them, during the procedure and a fourth, at the request of the defense to carry out a counter-report to the report already collected by two psychologists in the judicial process.
The psychologist who treated the minor for the longest time, an expert in child clinical psychology, has indicated in court that the now adolescent showed a "free and spontaneous account", as well as "coherent". In addition, the girl has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, whose symptoms are "consistent with the situation" reported.
Meanwhile, she added that during the sessions the minor recounted other episodes of sexual violence with other males, in this case with classmates or people close to the family who were minors and subsequent to the events being judged.
In addition to this report are the two psychologists in charge of preparing the expert documents. Among the conclusions drawn during two days of interviews with the minor, the analysis of her testimony and that of her mother, both professionals concluded in their report that the account is "probably credible and corresponds to the events experienced." In their case, they add an anxious depressive picture to the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress.
Regarding possible gaps or omissions in the testimony, the experts reflect that "it is expected" that there will be omissions, but "the central facts in the account are maintained" and "it may happen" that she does not remember the exact date, as well as that it takes several years to report it.
The counter-report presented by the defense
The fourth expert was hired by the defendant's defense. In this case, the psychologist carried out a counter-report that responded to the reports prepared by the experts who attended to the minor during the judicial procedure. For the professional, the expert report does not address other "victimizations", nor does it establish "a differentiation" of the possible four cases of sexual violence suffered by the victim, but which have nothing to do with the case. In this line, she has assured that "the testimony of the minor cannot be combined" "because there is no account" by not having differentiated the other three possible cases.
In this sense, the psychologists have been questioned by the Public Prosecutor's Office about the counter-report presented by the defense. The experts have insisted that if the counter-report does not have access to all the documentary evidence collected, as well as to the full videos of the minor's testimony, it "loses objectivity" and "replicability". During their intervention by video call they have assured that "if you do not have access, there is nothing that can be discussed".
Prosecutor's request
The Public Prosecutor's Office has maintained the request for 12 years in prison with the accessory of absolute disqualification during the time of the sentence, the prohibition of approaching the minor less than 500 meters and of communicating with her within a period of 20 years.
In addition, he has requested supervised release for 10 years after the time in prison, as well as the payment of court costs. Regarding civil liability, the accused must compensate the minor's mother with 6,000 euros.
To conclude, he has added the penalty of special disqualification to work or carry out any activity that involves direct contact with minors for 17 years.
