The wife of J.M.A.V., accused of a crime of continued sexual assault against his daughter in Lanzarote between 2003 and 2007, assured before the court that is judging the facts in section II of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas, that her husband is "innocent" and that the complaint is the result of the "manipulation" that her own mother carried out on her daughter, who is currently of legal age.
The mother of the young woman, who according to the Prosecutor's Office suffered "continuous touching" in her genital area or the obligation for her to masturbate her father, explained that the grandmother "has always been a bad influence" on the family, and acknowledged that the relationship they had had deteriorated since she herself became pregnant with her first child.
At all times she stressed that the relationship had been "good" between father and daughter and that the origin of the complaint arises when her mother "gets in the middle" of family life "with bad intentions".
According to the Prosecutor's Office, the accused maintained during the same period "a behavior of contempt towards his daughter", insulting her, depriving her of food "or putting her on her knees" on the floor. Precisely at this point there were contradictions between the versions offered by J.M.A.V and his wife.
While the detainee says that he only put her on her knees once "with 14 or 15 years for not doing her homework" and only "a few tenths of a second", the woman acknowledged that she had seen this behavior "on at least two occasions" when the girl was less than ten years old. Likewise, the woman rejected that her husband was irascible or maintained abnormal behavior in the family home.
"My husband has a fairly strong voice, but he never spoke to [the daughter] abruptly," she said. In addition, both the accused and his wife rejected that the young woman was forced to perform work related to the construction sector - such as mixing or loading sacks of cement - an extreme also denounced by the daughter, who is now 19 years old.
"She voluntarily lent a hand on the family farm", attached to the house in Lanzarote, assured the wife, who denied that she did the work of a bricklayer, a job that her husband did do.
The prosecutor maintains that the girl's father abandoned his job to, taking advantage of the fact that the daughter had dropped out of the Institute at 16 and was at home, abuse her. This thesis was denied by the accused, who insisted that his wife was "always" at home and that there was no opportunity for him to be alone with the teenager.
However, the woman confirmed that between February 2006 and June 2007 she worked in two different supermarkets, which did force her to be away while her daughter was in charge of household chores. At the same time, she acknowledged that "twice a week" the husband used to come home from work "to look for tools", but, in her words, "he left with them".
Two years without saying anything
The accused's wife acknowledged that the first time she became aware that her husband might be sexually abusing her daughter was in October 2007, when "a girl told me that my daughter was saying that her father was raping her".
According to her testimony, she spoke with her and asked her for explanations, to which the young woman responded crying that "it was a lie and how could she say that about dad". The second time she became aware of these alleged abuses was when the daughter denounced her father, at the beginning of January 2009. Until that date, two years later, both parents had not addressed this issue.
17 years in prison
The prosecutor is asking for 15 years in prison for a continued crime of sexual assault, as well as a prohibition from approaching within 500 meters of any place where his daughter is. In addition, he is asking for another two years and six months for a crime of habitual violence in the family environment for "maintaining a contemptuous behavior" and "inflicting blows" on his son, who is currently 14 years old. The defense is asking for acquittal.
ACN
