Two of the defendants have been sentenced for the gang rape of a minor in the Valencian Community.

ValenciaThe Valencia Provincial Court has sentenced two of the four defendants to 20 and 12 years in prison for the gang rape of a fourteen-year-old girl in a small Valencian town in the Albaida Valley region in 2020. The court sentenced two of the defendants, aged between 24 and 26, to 12 years in prison. They were also banned from communicating with the victim and from approaching within 200 meters for 16 years. One of them was also sentenced to eight years in prison for a second offense of sexual abuse and was banned from communicating with or approaching the victim for another 10 years. Both defendants will jointly and severally pay the girl €50,000 in compensation for the moral damages she suffered as a result of the assault.

The events occurred on the night of September 27, 2020, when the victim went to a party with a friend. There they met the two convicted individuals and an undetermined number of people, mostly men. As stated in the sentence, the minor drank alcoholic beverages that affected her physical abilities and willpower. The victim began to dance with the convicted men, who were fully aware of the minor's state of intoxication and her age. The girl was then escorted or taken to a place known as the wall, which is a secluded area, although not far from the location where the party was being held. There, the two convicted men had sexual relations with her simultaneously. The girl was unable to see them, but she did hear the attackers talking and heard other men also attacking the minor or watching others do so. These men could not be tried because they could not be identified. In fact, it is unknown exactly how many there were, although it is estimated at 15.

Two acquitted of abuse

Shortly after these events, and as the girl was arriving at her grandmother's house, she received several messages from one of the two convicted men proposing a threesome. The minor went with him to an uninhabited house in the same town, where they met another man, who had been invited by the first man. The second man was acquitted because, according to the court, he had not previously met the victim or known her state of intoxication. Furthermore, he left after having sex with the girl. "He had no time to assess the victim's personal circumstances," the ruling states. On the contrary, the other attacker continued abusing her until seven in the morning.

In addition to one of the two men involved in the attack on the uninhabited house, the judges acquitted the fourth defendant because he allegedly only took the victim to her grandmother's house after the first episode of abuse. The court found no evidence that he had asked the minor to perform fellatio on him, as the charges claimed.

"I had no strength for anything"

During the trial, the young woman, who testified while protected by a screen, explained that her alcohol consumption prevented her from being aware of what had happened, from screaming for help, or from leaving. "I didn't have the strength to do anything," she summarized. She also recounted that she was forced to perform oral sex and repeatedly raped by numerous men and that she initially refused to report the incident out of "fear" of what "they would say" about her in her town, which is "a small town" where "people talk a lot." Along the same lines, the Civil Guard officers who took over the investigation described the victim as "immature, timid, and with low self-esteem." They also detailed that the young woman tried to "minimize" the assault to the point of exonerating some of the participants. In this regard, the police stated that only when the victim spoke to third parties did she admit that she "didn't know what she was doing" and that she thought something had been put in her drink.