The Supreme Court has issued a final ruling on one of the most complex cases in the legal landscape of southern Gran Canaria. The Criminal Chamber has dismissed the appeal filed by a man sentenced to four years in prison for the repeated sexual abuse of a minor under sixteen years of age. The ruling brings to a close a procedural labyrinth that began in the Court of First Instance number 1 of San Bartolomé de Tirajana and whose final resolution depended on assessing the weight of a last-minute retraction by the victim.
The ruling, drafted by Judge Carmen Lamela Díaz, fully upholds the sentence originally handed down by the Provincial Court of Las Palmas and subsequently endorsed by the High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands. The judges of the high court had to employ forensic tools related to the admissibility of evidence to analyze a case where family dynamics and the social environment of the tourist town ultimately carried more weight in the judicial assessment than the victim's own testimony during the trial.
The events began between January 2018 and July 2019 at a residence in the southern part of the island. The accused took advantage of his regular weekend visits to the home of a friend—with whom he had a close relationship—to sexually assault one of her daughters on the living room sofa, using a blanket to conceal the act. The abuse also occurred during a family vacation to the island of Tenerife.
The defense's main argument for overturning the conviction was based on the radical change in the minor's testimony during the trial. When she took the stand, the victim recanted all her previous statements to the investigating judge, the police, and the forensic psychologists, claiming that her father had threatened to place her in a juvenile detention center if she did not file a complaint. This situation compelled the Sixth Section of the Las Palmas Provincial Court to conduct a thorough examination of the reasons for her retraction.
The Supreme Court dismantled the defense's strategy, reiterating that a victim's change of testimony in court does not invalidate her previous statements. The Criminal Chamber emphasized that the lower court acted impeccably in comparing the accounts and uncovering the contradictions in the minor's testimony, who implausibly claimed to have acted out of fear of a father with whom she had had no contact since the day she filed the complaint.
The key to the Supreme Court upholding the criminal sentence lies in the corroborating evidence surrounding the home. The victim's sister testified that she witnessed strange movements on the sofa under the blanket and revealed a crucial detail: the day before the trial, she received a call from the minor asking her to lie in court because her mother was pressuring her to protect the accused. The mother herself, who was acquitted of the cover-up charges, admitted in court that her daughter had told her about the inappropriate touching long before the father was aware of it, thus disproving the theory of paternal coercion and sealing the defendant's fate in prison.
