Bryan Andres and four other males lured a 14-year-old girl to an abandoned warehouse in the northern Spanish town of Manresa with the promise of partying. She passed out from acute drunkenness after being plied with drink and narcotics. The males took advantage of the situation to indulge their dark desires.
As the girl was unconscious, the males alternated raping her. Andres was accused of giving his companions “15 minutes each” to do whatever they wanted with the incapacitated youngster. Andres held a revolver while they committed terrible sexual acts on the girl, just in case she awoke during the attacks.
First, the males were charged with sexual assault, a felony punishable by a jail term ranging from 15 to 20 years. A judge in Barcelona reduced those terms to between 10 and 12 years in jail by downgrading the case to sexual abuse of a child.
In a shocking decision, all five men were cleared of rape charges when the judges justified their actions by pointing out that the juvenile victim did not reject their sexual approaches because she was asleep. The court also stated that there was no “violence” employed during the assault since the youngster was unconscious.
For an accusation of sexual assault, which amounts to rape under Spanish law, the accused must use violence or intimidation. The lack of such force was used as a pretext to charge the defendants more lightly and sentence them to a shorter term.
The judges, though, were not the only ones to blame for the shocking conclusion. In fact, the judges expressed “surprise” that the prosecution opted at the last minute to change the case from sexual assault to maltreatment. The prosecution said that they found no cause for the more severe rape charge in this instance.
Two of the men were sentenced to 12 years in jail for sexual assault, but they were also condemned for other offenses, including chronic sexual abuse. Two others were acquitted of the sexual abuse accusation entirely. In the instance of the fifth guy, the court concluded that since he was accused of masturbating while the woman was being raped, it couldn’t show that he had even committed the charge of failing to halt a crime.
The court ultimately awarded the underage victim $13,387 because the assault on the child’s sexual integrity was exceedingly harsh and particularly derogatory. However, the compensation is unlikely to compensate the victim for the years of counseling required to recover from this heinous crime.
Massive demonstrations have erupted throughout Spain in the aftermath of the court’s decision. Furious residents have demanded that the case be retried and that the appropriate charge of sexual assault be restored. Many people are praying for the guys to get the maximum sentence, which is improbable.
Since a crime in Spain must include violence or intimidation in order to be classified as sexual assault rather than maltreatment, many victims, particularly minors, have seen their abusers get away with lesser penalties.
