The number 3 court of the Instruction Section of the Court of First Instance of Arrecife is investigating the father of a 20-month-old baby who died last April from a traumatic brain injury. The Court is investigating him for a crime of homicide, the degree of which has not yet been determined, as well as for another crime against road safety, for driving without a license. Furthermore, it does not rule out the possibility of it being a case of vicarious violence, as the investigated person has a record for gender-based violence.
Vicarious violence is a type of gender-based violence where the man harms the woman by using her loved ones, especially her sons and daughters. In 2011, José Bretón killed his children Ruth and José to hurt his ex-wife Ruth Ortiz and burned their bodies in a bonfire.
Four years later, in 2015, Spain approved a Law on Vicarious Violence, which specifically recognized this type of violence. In 2021, Tomás Gimeno killed his two daughters Anna and Olivia, aged one and six, in Tenerife; Anna's body and that of her father were never found, despite an oceanographic vessel combing the area for days.
Between 2013 and 2026, 68 minors have been murdered by their parents in cases of gender-based violence against their mother or legal guardian. "You will never see them again," was Tomás Gimeno's threat to his ex-wife Beatriz Zimmermann before kidnapping their two daughters.
Among the examples of vicarious violence, the Ministry of Health points to threats to the mother of taking the children away from her or killing them, but also stopping their medical treatments when they are with him, using the visitation schedules of their children to insult, threaten, or humiliate the mother, speaking ill of her or her family in the presence of the minors.
016 telephone information and legal advice service for all types of violence against women, available in more than 50 languages. It leaves no trace on the phone or the bill.