The Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA) has fully confirmed the ruling issued by the Seventh Section of the Provincial Court of Cádiz, based in Algeciras, which imposed a four-year prison sentence on a man for a continued crime of sexual abuse against his sister-in-law, who was a minor when the events occurred.
According to the sentence, reported by Europa Press, the abuses took place between 2018 and 2020, a period during which the convicted man lived with his wife in a house adjacent to that of his in-laws, where his two younger sisters-in-law also lived. One of them, who was between eleven and 12 years old at that time, visited the accused's house almost daily with her younger sister due to the close relationship she maintained with her older sister and her husband.
The ruling details that the defendant took advantage of that closeness to carry out sexual abuses on certain occasions, mainly through touching when he was alone with the minor in some room of the house. These episodes caused significant psychological distress to the victim, who required specialized treatment, and it was precisely after starting that therapy that the decision was made to file the complaint.
After being convicted by the Provincial Court of Cádiz, the accused appealed to the TSJA claiming, among other reasons, a violation of the principle of presumption of innocence and an error in the assessment of the evidence presented during the trial.
However, the Andalusian high court has rejected the appeal, understanding that the Provincial Court, after analyzing "thoroughly the personal evidence presented in the plenary and also the expert evidence carried out, and reasonably assessing the credibility of the accused and the witnesses, reasonably leaned towards the version offered by the victim with logical, coherent arguments, without any apparent and manifest error that needs to be corrected, nor violation of the principle of presumption of innocence" alleged in the appeal.