The Supreme Court has confirmed the 19-year prison sentence imposed on a Civil Guard sergeant who sexually assaulted and harassed a fellow female officer under his command at a barracks in Molina de Segura (Murcia) for over four years. The Military Court dismissed the six grounds of appeal presented by the man against the sentence of a military court that convicted him of a continuing crime of rape in conjunction with a serious mental injury crime (13 and a half years in prison) and two continuing crimes of abuse of authority in the form of degrading treatment (2 years and 10 months in prison) and maltreatment of a subordinate (2 years and 8 months in prison). The established facts in the sentence reveal the hell the woman went through between 2011 and 2015, with constant assaults and intimidations by the sergeant. The aggressor and his victim had a romantic relationship without cohabitation (the now convicted man was married) between February 2010 and September 2011, when he ended it. Shortly after, the sergeant decided he wanted to resume the relationship and began pursuing the officer with unwanted touching almost daily, which she tried to avoid with “swipes,” explain the judges.
Starting in 2012, the sergeant began to force the woman to have full sexual relations at her home or at the barracks. The military court’s sentence established that these assaults occurred “frequently” and that when she refused, the convicted man “considering his rank and position,” would change her service hours or assign her extra duties. The woman became pregnant after one of the rapes and the sergeant, the judges note, forced her to have an abortion. In March 2015, the woman was placed on sick leave for a depressive disorder and generalized anxiety. The Supreme Court states in its verdict, drafted by Judge Fernando Marín Castán, that the established facts “reflect a plurality of sexual assaults, degrading treatment and physical abuse by the superior hierarchical figure towards the same subordinate victim, occurring within the context of non-consensual sexual relations and abuse of authority, prolonged in time, driven by a single intention or unit of purpose and taking advantage of similar opportunities by the active subject.”
The judges warn that the events took place “not in isolation, but consistently over time; always, of course, operating on the same subordinate female officer and taking advantage of the accused’s superior hierarchical relationship with her, leading to the victim’s submission to his sexual demands through repeated acts of degrading treatment, insults, threats, and even physical abuse.”
