The Provincial Court of Cantabria has imposed a sentence of six years in prison on a man who sexually assaulted a woman whose faculties were nullified by the intake of sleeping pills and who, after she reproached him for what happened, ended up apologizing through WhatsApp messages.
In the judicial resolution, which is not yet final as it can be appealed to the Superior Court of Justice of Cantabria, the Third Section declares him guilty of an aggravated sexual assault crime as the victim was completely deprived of her will.
Along with the prison sentence, he is prohibited from approaching the complainant or communicating with her for a period of ten years, a measure of supervised release of five years once he leaves prison, and disqualification from performing work with minors for eleven years.
In terms of civil liability, the court sets compensation of 3,000 euros in favor of the woman for the moral damage caused, taking into account "the severity of the victim's impact and considering the exacerbation of her underlying adaptive symptomatology."
The proven facts state that the accused went to dinner at the woman's home and later decided to stay overnight. Before going to bed, she expressly warned him "not to disturb her because she was taking medication to sleep," but he, disregarding that indication, acted "with the intent to satisfy his sexual desires" in the middle of the night. Thus, he took advantage of the fact that the victim had her capacities nullified by the sleep induced by the medication to position himself over her and penetrate her.
The woman "woke up feeling vaginal pain, pushed him off, and went to the bathroom, where she freshened up, changed into pajamas, and returned to bed."
The next day and during the following month, after reproaching him for what had happened that night, the accused "repeatedly apologized" to her through WhatsApp messages.
The victim's statement, the axis of the conviction
For the court, the evidence presented at the oral hearing confirms the reality of what happened. It considers that the testimony of the affected party "has been sufficient to undermine the right to the presumption of innocence that protected the accused" as her account was "clear, coherent, and convincing."
It "allows to grant full credibility and verisimilitude, since it has always and at all times said the same thing, without varying minimally its version of the facts, without contradictions and without logical fissures of any kind".
Her account is also supported by the rest of the evidence, particularly by the conversations held via WhatsApp in the days following, in which she reproaches him for what happened and he repeatedly asks for forgiveness.
At this point, the Court highlights "the unequivocally self-incriminating tenor of the messages, by repeatedly asking for forgiveness for what happened, without at any moment denying the reality of the reported fact", as well as "the expression of feelings of shame, remorse, and self-reproach, which implies an implicit assumption of the behavior displayed".
Although the messages "do not constitute a confession in a technical sense, they do integrate a qualified indication of factual recognition as objective peripheral elements of an external nature".
Vulnerability of the victim and aggravating factor
When examining the actions of the accused, the court concludes that he intervened when the woman "did not have real capacity to perceive the beginning of sexual contact, assess its meaning, or express a free will in an affirmative or negative sense".
According to the ruling, "the victim was in a state of deep sleep induced by sleeping medication, a situation that doctrine and jurisprudence equate to states of unconsciousness, extreme intoxication, or other relevant annulments of the capacity to decide in which one cannot speak of free and conscious consent".
For this reason, the Court appreciates the specific aggravating circumstance of the criminal type, understanding that the woman was "particularly vulnerable due to her personal situation".
"The behavior displayed by the accused represents a blatant exploitation of the victim's state of absolute vulnerability, who, being in a deep sleep due to the medication, was in a situation of total defenselessness, with no possibility of opposition or of setting any condition on the development of sexual contact".