The Supreme Court has raised this Wednesday the sentences of three defendants for participating in the group rape of an 18-year-old girl in Sabadell (Barcelona) in February 2019, considering that in multiple sexual assaults the conduct of those who are part of the group, even if they are not the perpetrators of the violations, they have an extra seriousness in the environmental privacy of the victim that must be qualified as necessary cooperation in the crime and not just complicity.
The Criminal Chamber upholds the appeal of the Prosecutor's Office and increases the sentence of the two convicted for complicity in the three violations suffered by the young woman from 13 and a half years to 24 years in prison, as they are now considered necessary cooperators of the same and not accomplices.
In addition, the magistrates increase the sentence of one of the perpetrators of sexual assault from 22 to 28 years in prison, on whom they impose 12 years in prison as the perpetrator of the rape and 16 more years as a necessary cooperator of the two sexual assaults committed by others. two men (one of them in absentia and another unidentified).
The events occurred after 6 in the morning on February 3, 2019 when the victim was going home alone after having been in a nightclub and a man (who could not be identified) approached her from behind, grabbing her by the neck, putting her against the wall and groping the girl and inserting a finger into her vagina. He then led her to a location that had previously been a bank office, currently occupied by at least six other men (the three accused, another declared in absentia, and two more unidentified individuals).
The young woman was raped first by two of the men (the one who assaulted her in the street and the one declared in absentia) and thirdly by one of the defendants, who not only penetrated her vaginally and orally like the previous two, but also tried anally.
The Court of Barcelona, in first instance, sentenced the perpetrator of one of the violations to 31 years in prison (13 years for the sexual assault and two sentences of 9 years as a necessary cooperator for each of the other two assaults), and the two other defendants, who were part of the group but did not commit the rapes, to 13 and a half years in prison as accomplices in three sexual assaults (4 and a half years in prison for each of them).
The Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia partially upheld the former's appeal and considered him an accomplice and necessary non-cooperator of the two sexual assaults not committed by him, so that it established two penalties of 4 years and 6 months in prison instead of 9 years, keeping unchanged the sentence of 13 years in prison for the sexual assault he committed. In other words, the sentence became 22 years.
Now, the Supreme Court raises the sentences by estimating the claim of the Prosecutor's Office that what was considered complicity in the sexual assaults of the three defendants is qualified as necessary cooperation in the crimes. The sentence indicates that the defendants "created environmental intimidation, were present, reinforced all the attacks with their participation, encouraged the perpetrators, dissuaded the victim, increased and created the situation of risk for the legal good, abstaining after avoiding the three violations , and they did all of this even without having the reins of the typical positive act that only corresponds to the perpetrator, not withdrawing their causal contribution, which could have prevented the three crimes -reins of the typical negative act- and their contribution was not sporadic, accidental and expendable, but rather causally relevant from the point of view of the equivalence of the conditions and more effective and substantially valuable causation from the scarce goods theory. That is, they were necessary cooperators and not mere accomplices of the crimes of rape".
For the High Court, the concept of necessary cooperation extends to cases in which, "even if there is no preordained plan, the violation occurs in the presence of other individuals without prior agreement, but with awareness of the action that is carried out jointly. In In these cases, the intimidating effect is produced by the simple presence or concurrence of several people, other than the one who materially consummates the violation, since the existence of the group can produce a state of environmental intimidation in the person attacked. group intimidation inexcusably causes the victim to adopt an attitude of submission, not consent".
The Chamber emphasizes that "in multiple sexual assaults there is an intensification of the intimidation suffered by the victim with an effective reduction in their ability to respond, all of which gives rise to a qualitative increase in the seriousness of the situation, radically incompatible with complicity" .
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