THE MINOR HAS CONFIRMED HER COMPLAINT DURING THE TRIAL

The defendant accused of sexually abusing a girl refuses to testify at trial

The only defense witness was the defendant's mother. The minor, who was between 7 and 10 years old when the events occurred, has confirmed her complaint during the trial...

March 17 2015 (18:28 WET)
The defendant accused of sexually abusing a girl refuses to testify at trial
The defendant accused of sexually abusing a girl refuses to testify at trial

Neither to the Prosecutor's Office, nor to the private prosecution, nor to the magistrates of the Sixth Section of the Provincial Court, nor to his own lawyer. The defendant accused of sexually abusing a girl in Teguise has decided to remain silent during the trial and not answer any questions. "Whoever formulates it?" the magistrate who presided over the room asked him, to make it clear if he was not going to answer his lawyer either. 

"Man, at least answer this!" the judge insisted, seeing that the accused continued to remain silent. "Correct," Gonzalo Martín Cabrera was then heard to say, who then did not say another word. Not even in his defense or to deny the serious acts that he is accused of.

Martín is accused of a continuing crime of sexual abuse against a girl, a friend of his son, who when the events occurred was between 7 and 10 years old, according to the minor's account. During the trial, the girl stated that she suffered different touching by the accused, who took advantage of the visits that her brother and she made to his house in Teguise. 

The house actually belonged to the grandparents (parents of the accused), and both the girl and her brother have stated that they frequently stayed there to sleep to be with their friend. One of those nights, according to the minor's testimony, the accused came to lie on top of her in bed, although nothing happened. "I left with my brother," the girl explained, after saying that the three children and the accused slept in the same room, where they "put the beds together." 

In addition, she has recounted other episodes experienced in the car, when the accused took his son and the two brothers somewhere, or in different rooms of the house, where according to the girl he "touched" her in "the chest and down" every time they were alone.

 

The accused's mother, the only defense witness


During the hearing held this Tuesday, only the accused's mother testified as a defense witness, who assured that the complainant and her brother only slept once in her house, where Gonzalo Martín and his son also lived. "They stayed one night because their parents didn't show up. They were starving and I even had to give them dinner," she stated. 

In addition, she assured that she was "always" "watching over them", and added that the room where the children and Gonzalo slept is connected by a door to her own bedroom, and that that door was "always" open. 

"If they only stayed once to sleep, why does she say 'always'?" the prosecutor asked, trying to underline the contradiction in her testimony, which clashes with that of the minors and that of the children's mother, who assure that it was common for them to sleep in that house.

In addition, given that in the investigation she stated that she never observed anything strange in her son's relationship with the girl, the prosecutor asked the accused's mother if she also "didn't find it strange that the children stopped going" to her house, to which the woman replied that "they never stopped going." Regarding the presence of children in her home, she stated that it is something habitual. "My house is always full of children, who come and go," she stated.

For his part, during the interrogations of the different witnesses, the accused's lawyer emphasized that the accused's mother was always in the house, and also insisted on asking about the relationship between the complainant's parents, and if they were separated when the events occurred.

Although the trial began this Tuesday, it will not conclude until mid-April, when a new date will be set to continue the hearing, since the testimony of some experts is pending. In his indictment, the Prosecutor's Office is asking for six years in prison for the accused for a continuing crime of sexual abuse.

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