The Second Section of the Provincial Court of Alicante has imposed a sentence of one year and six months in prison on the former president of Les Corts Valencianes, Julio de España, for a sexual assault committed against a patient during an examination in his office as a specialist doctor in digestive system medicine.
The court, however, exempts him from another sexual assault offense concerning a second patient and from two offenses of degrading treatment, considering that in the trial, held between May and June of this year, the commission of those acts was not sufficiently proven.
The ruling, against which an appeal may be filed before the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the High Court of Justice of the Comunitat Valenciana (TSJCV), adds to the prison sentence two years of probation and four years of disqualification from any activity, profession or trade involving direct and habitual contact with minors.
Likewise, the convicted man must pay the victim of the sexual assault compensation of 12,000 euros for the damages caused and is prohibited from approaching her or communicating with her by any means for a period of three years.
According to what the TSJCV reported this Thursday, the magistrates consider it proven that the doctor, who requested leave from the PP a few months ago after learning of the charges brought by the prosecution, violated the medical "lex artis" by touching the genitals of a patient, also a nurse, during an examination carried out in a private clinic in Alicante on August 7, 2023.
The woman went to the office so that he could assess and study a possible intolerance to certain foods that caused her heavy digestion and intestinal inflammation. The sentence details that De España palpated her face, cheekbones, neck, abdomen and lower part of the belly and, next, without offering her explanations, ordered her to place herself "on all fours, facing the wall," as if she were "being punished".
Then he performed a rectal examination, which the Audiencia considers medically justified and, therefore, not criminal, but immediately afterward, without giving her information, he palpated the patient's genital area.
The victim was left "paralyzed and in shock by the way the accused acted, not in accordance with the criteria required by 'lex artis' nor necessary in this case," the ruling states in the proven facts. As a consequence, she developed an acute post-traumatic stress disorder and suffers as a sequel from an anxiety disorder of a moderate and intermittent degree.
Second patient and partial acquittal
The second complainant, diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome and who also intended to undergo food intolerance tests, was attended to by De España at the same clinic on November 2, 2021.
In that consultation, the doctor likewise told her to get on "all fours" and told her that he was going to "punish" her, performed a rectal examination on her and, when he finished, told her that "the president had said that heterosexuals had to have anal sex because it was healthy for diseases".
The Second Section of the Alicante Provincial Court concludes that the examination carried out on this second woman does not constitute a crime of sexual assault, given that "there were digestive symptoms present at the time of the consultations and medical antecedents" that "led the defendant to indicate the ano-rectal examination".
In the same way, the judges rule out that the rectal examinations constitute crimes of degrading treatment with respect to either of the two patients, considering that the genupectoral position "is one of those medically accepted for carrying out the examination".
"No matter how much it may inspire in some people a feeling of humiliation by the exposure of intimate parts, it is not intended by the doctor carrying out such an examination the humiliation and objectification of persons," the Court specifies.
Assessment of the doctor's comments
Regarding the expressions addressed by the convicted man to the women during the visits, the judges describe them as "absolutely unfortunate" and "inappropriate", in addition to "not at all empathic, lacking sensitivity and socially reproachable", but point out that they "lack the relevance and seriousness to be conceived as constituting a criminal offense".