The Supreme Court has sentenced a man to a 2,400 euro fine for sexting, understanding that sending a single image of sexual content, as he did to a friend of his ex-partner after an argument, is enough to make it a crime.
The events occurred on April 22, 2018, after an argument in the house where they lived in Barcelona in which the convicted person broke two televisions and stole computers, cards and a passport.
Shortly after, “with the purpose of denigrating the privacy” of his partner, “and without his consent,” he sent a photograph via WhatsApp to a friend of the victim in which his partner appears reclining, with his torso uncovered and with a penis. erect next to his face, an image that he had sent exclusively to him.
The Criminal Court number 3 of Barcelona sentenced him to pay 2,400 euros for a crime of revealing secrets but acquitted him of the crimes of damage and theft.
Later, the Barcelona Court also acquitted him of the crime of revealing a secret because it understood that the criminal offense (article 197.7 of the Penal Code) refers to plural images and with the submission of a single image the error in shipping or neglect.
The Prosecutor’s Office appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed with it because it maintains that a single photograph does satisfy the criminal offense, since many criminal offenses are written in the plural referring to postage stamps, credit cards, drugs, etc.
In this regard, the Court says that “it is clear that the falsification of a seal, the cloning, creation, production or manipulation of a single credit card, or the dissemination to third parties of a single dose of a narcotic substance satisfies the requirements of the type.” .
For this reason, they highlight that the convicted person had the photograph “of undoubted sexual content” for “his exclusive contemplation and not for third parties”, which he broke when he sent it to another person “with the purpose of denigrating the privacy” of his partner and “without his consent”, which is why he annuls the Court’s sentence and imposes 2,400 euros for revealing secrets (sexting), although with the dissenting vote of two magistrates.
The victim has received psychological assistance for anxiety-depressive syndrome, derived from the events, at least until the date of the trial, with various fluctuations, and which has not caused a full recovery.
