A court decision from A Coruna County Court examines a grave sexual assault case within a family context. The defendant received a fourteen-year prison sentence for raping his sister-in-law in January 2005, when the victim was seventeen. The judgment also imposed prohibitions on contacting the victim and additional penalties tied to the defendant’s relationship with the complainant, along with a monetary compensation of 30,000 euros awarded to the survivor.
Magistrates determined that the defendant used kinship ties to gain access to the victim, inviting her into his car after calling twice in the early hours of January 17, 2005, claiming he needed to return money to his father. He guided her toward the vehicle and promised a ride to retrieve the funds. The car drove away into a sparsely populated area, a location described by the judges as unusually quiet for a day like that.
Upon reaching a secluded site near a chapel, the verdict records that after a brief exchange, the defendant took the victim’s phone and kept it. He produced a large knife and used it as a warning while urging the victim to perform oral sex. The victim refused, and the defendant then demanded undressing, provided a nightgown, and positioned himself in the front passenger seat while holding the knife close to the victim. He menaced that anyone who spoke of the incident would be killed, extending the threat to his sister and a niece and escalating the danger faced by the survivor.
As a consequence of these actions, the court found that the victim experienced notable disruptions in daily life and in social, family, sexual, and emotional relationships.
The court identified key pieces of evidence, including the victim’s statement, corroboration from a friend, an on-site visual review, and early reports filed on the same day by officers who were accompanied by the victim and her mother in 2005.
Judges noted that the victim did not act with revenge in mind and affirmed that her account remained coherent, with no logical gaps or contradictions that would undermine its credibility. They emphasized that the complainant consistently presented the same version of events and did not alter the core details over time.
The ruling also stressed that the victim’s initial disclosure to a friend about the assault occurred during high school. The emphasis was on the content of the report rather than when the event first occurred. The court indicated that the timing and context reduce the likelihood of a fabricated narrative, particularly since the incident involved a family member who could have been at work when the time of discovery arrived.
The judges concluded that the survivor’s abrupt behavior on the day in question aligned with a genuine experience of the kind described, making a simple simulation unlikely. After a site visit, a junior judge described the location as clear and representative of what occurred that day.
The court observed that conclusions in the 2018 Imelga report were acceptable, reflecting a critique of the 2005 assessment and acknowledging the presence of emotional traces consistent with similar cases. The analysis involved a review of earlier documents and a careful examination of prior reports from multiple sources. The judges stressed that a fresh evaluation was necessary to assess how the defense version stood against the available records. The sentence remains subject to appeal and has not become final.
In delivering the decision, the court explained how the 2018 Galician Forensic Medicine Institute report re-examined the earlier findings and how the defense’s arguments were weighed. The outcome shows that the prosecution’s narrative carried substantial weight, yet the court allowed room for an appeal, recognizing that new evidence or perspectives could influence the final result.