The Supreme Court has confirmed 10 years in prison for a 20-year-old basketball instructor for sexual abuse of a 13-year-old student in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, rejecting that the close age between the two exempts him from criminal responsibility, especially taking into account tells of his position as a sports educator.
The accused, who is now 26 years old, asked the Supreme Court to acquit him based on a clause in the Penal Code that exempts criminal liability if the perpetrator of the crime is a “person close to the minor by age and degree of development or maturity” and if there is “free consent of the minor under 16 years of age.”
Claim that the court rejects when taking into account the “very young age” of the minor and the “singularly relevant” context in which the events occurred: she was a student at the school where he “provided assistance” as a monitor.
These elements allow the Supreme Court to infer that the accused had a higher education, without any “type of deficiency in his psychological development that would balance the difference” in age.
The Penal Code punishes anyone who performs “acts of a sexual nature with a minor under sixteen years of age” with a sentence ranging from two to twelve years in prison.
What it does not establish, the magistrates explain, is an age range in which this clause that would absolve the accused must automatically be applied, unlike French legislation, which punishes sexual relations between an adult and a minor under 15 years of age whenever the age difference is at least five.
The Supreme Court makes it clear that “in child abuse, age asymmetry” is “one of the decisive factors” that prevents the minor from freely deciding on “a shared sexual activity with full autonomy.”
In addition to the prison sentence for a continued crime of sexual abuse, the Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife imposed on the accused 13 years of disqualification from a profession that involves contact with minors, a punishment that was confirmed by both the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands and the Supreme.
The lower court ruling considered it proven that the accused knew that the young woman was 13 years old and was a student at the school where she worked, and that he contacted her in July 2018 on Instagram and “managed to convince her to meet alone” and maintain two relationships. sexual. The resolution found that she “took advantage” of her young age and her “lack of maturity.”
The Supreme Court rejects the accused’s arguments about the minor’s lack of credibility and reiterates that victims of abuse, especially minors, do not always retain in their memory “all the facts with absolute precision.”
They also remember that it was not the minor who reported, but rather her parents, so there is no “evidence of a motive of resentment” that could call into question their credibility.
