The Supreme Court has confirmed in all its terms the sentence of the Second Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas which in July 2023 imposed sentences ranging from 42 to 36 years on four men found guilty of the gang rape of a British woman in the south of the island of Gran Canaria in February 2021. Apart from the DNA remains, the following audio message from one of the accused sent to a third party has been key in this sentence: "Everyone's fine here. Yesterday we slept in the park, the cousin came and grabbed the English girl, we all grabbed her, me and Juan Carlos and Juan Enrique and another boy. From 11 at night until 3 in the morning. We all took turns. A little girl who luckily passed by this park last night."
The Puerto Rican pharmacy employee reported that a foreign girl had gone to the pharmacy looking for the morning-after pill after being attacked by a group and that the victim did not want to report the incident, so she went to do so. They also confirmed that they had seen the marks on the 42-year-old woman's wrists and the state of post-shock she was in when she went to the police station to testify. The expert evidence has allowed them to determine the injuries suffered by the complainant, which are fully consistent with the attack she said she had been subjected to.
The Supreme Court has rejected the appeals of the accused and has validated the judgment of the court, considering that the decision of the Court was in accordance with the law and did not make an error in the assessment of the evidence or violate the right to the presumption of innocence, as claimed by the defense.
The proven facts reported by the Court are confirmed as true. According to them, on the night of February 26, 2021, when the victim was walking in Puerto Rico (Mogán), one of the defendants grabbed her by one of her wrists and forced her to go against her will to the place where the other three defendants were, "where, previously agreed, with evident libidinous intent and, all of them driven by the intention of attacking her sexual freedom, one by one they took turns to penetrate her, vaginally and anally, doing so up to two times" one of them stated.
The Court confirms two 12-year prison sentences for rape for the accused who raped the victim on two occasions, and also imposes three other sentences for the perpetrator of as many crimes of sexual assault with penetration as an accomplice, which means that his overall sentence amounts to 42 years. However, the sentence recalls that he could not serve more than 20 years, according to the law. For the other three accused, the Court confirms sentences totalling 36 years in prison for each of them, twelve years for rape and 24 years for four crimes of cooperation in sexual assault with penetration. Likewise, in these cases it is established that the effective duration of the sentences may not exceed 20 years. In addition to the criminal sentences, the sentence now confirmed imposes on the accused a restraining order from the victim for a period of no less than 18 years and establishes various compensations.
