The Supreme Court lowers the prison sentence to three convicted of a group rape in Navarra of a woman with a disability

The sentences of two of the aggressors go from 17 to 13 years in prison; while the third goes from 16 to 8 years

MADRID, 26 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Supreme Court (TS) has reduced the prison sentences of the three convicted of a group rape of a woman with mental disabilities that took place in 2019 in a park in Orkoien, Navarra, considering that the environmental intimidation was not face-to-face and apply the new wording of the Penal Code after the entry into force of the 'only yes is yes' law.

The Provincial Court of Navarra sentenced the three as necessary collaborators in the sexual assaults committed by two of them, because one of the defendants had consensual sexual relations.

Now, the Supreme Court has considered it appropriate to maintain the sentences of 9 years in prison for the two who were convicted of the crime of sexual assault, but reduce the prison sentences imposed on them as collaborators in said attacks from 8 to 4 years.

With this decision, the two men who were sentenced by the Court of Navarra to 17 years are left with a sentence of 13 years in prison --9 for the crime of sexual assault and 4 for that of cooperator--. The third, who was sentenced to 16 years, sees his prison sentence reduced to 8 years --4 years as a cooperator in the two sexual assaults--.

As stated in the sentence, to which Europa Press has had access, the defendants moved to Orkoien, where they had met the victim, with whom one of them had contacted through a social network.

The events occurred in a park when the three defendants stood for a few moments on a bench and agreed to have sexual relations with the young woman, who was 23 years old at the time. Each of them maintained relations while the other two waited.

The resolution states that one of them offered the victim to move to an area between some bushes, to which she voluntarily agreed. There they had sex.

The other two remained outside that area, hidden from the view of third parties from outside. As the three had agreed, when the first one ended, he left the place and another of the defendants who sexually assaulted the victim agreed. At the end of the second, he left the place where the young woman was and notified the third defendant that he had entered and committed another sexual assault.

The Supreme Court has concluded that in this specific case "it was not an intimidation due to physical presence, but less active and outside the place of the facts", although the conduct was intimidating, as the victim perceived it and was exercised by those responsible , to a lesser degree of participatory relevance than in other cases.

Thus, the magistrates have considered that in this case the sentence of 4 years in prison for cooperation in the three cases "is duly proportional and adequate considering the specific case with effective environmental intimidation but degraded compared to other cases of greater face-to-face and physical attitude and closeness, which is what entails in this case the reduction of the sentence of four years in prison in each of the three cases, and which is now allowed by the new LO 10/2022, of September 6 by putting the minimum in 4 years in prison compared to 6 years in prison in the previous code".