The High Court of Justice of Madrid (TSJM) has upheld the sentence of fifteen years in prison imposed on a man for an attempted murder offense, after repeatedly stabbing his partner in the entrance area of her home in Pinto in June 2022, when she was trying to escape the assault.
The Civil and Penal Chamber, in a ruling, which Europa Press has obtained, rejects the appeal filed by the defense and fully confirms the sentence handed down on June 5, 2025 by Section 27 of the Provincial Court of Madrid. In addition to the prison sentence, the 500-meter restraining order for 20 years remains in place and the prohibition on communicating with the victim for the same period is maintained.
According to the facts declared proven, on June 12, 2022, the accused was in the home of the victim, with whom he had been living for about ten months. After a dispute, Javier left the home, but later returned and telephoned the woman to demand a sum of money that, according to him, she owed him.
When the woman opened the door for him and allowed him to enter the property again, the convicted man took a dagger from his backpack with a blade nine centimeters long and began attacking her. Although she begged him to stop, he continued to deliver numerous stab wounds to her abdomen, chest, and other parts of her body.
The victim tried to put herself out of danger by moving toward the elevator, but the man followed her and continued stabbing her, this time in the back. While going down the stairs and trying to reach the building’s exit door, the accused tried to prevent her from leaving the property.
The assailant ended up fleeing the scene amid the shouts of a neighbor, who had alerted the Police, and was arrested shortly afterward, about 200 meters away, by a patrol of the Local Police. During the escape, he got rid of the clothes he was wearing and the dagger used in the attack.
As a result of the assault, the woman suffered multiple incised wounds in different parts of her body, some of them serious, which required surgical intervention and a prolonged hospital stay. The injuries have left her with several aftereffects, including visible scars, functional limitation in the fingers of one hand, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
The ruling of the Provincial Court also imposed on the accused the payment of compensation in favor of the victim in the amount of 57,311.91 euros, an amount on which the corresponding legal interest shall accrue.
No mitigating factors for drug use
In its appeal, the defense sought, among other things, that mitigating circumstances be recognized for drug and alcohol use, for undue delays, and for cruelty, as well as a new individualized determination of the sentence.
However, the TSJM concludes that it has not been demonstrated that the intake of substances influenced in a relevant way the accused’s intellectual and volitional faculties to the point of impairing his ability to understand the unlawfulness of his conduct or to act in accordance with that understanding.
Likewise, the Chamber rejects the existence of undue delays in the processing of the proceedings and endorses the finding of cruelty, by considering that the high number of stabbings and the pursuit of the victim while she was trying to flee show a conscious will to increase her suffering.