The couple had been sentenced to 13 years in prison for abusing their own daughter, but the Evora Court of Appeal decided to reduce the sentence to seven years in jail.
The judges of the Évora Court of Appeal reduced the sentence to a couple convicted of two crimes of aggravated sexual abuse of their own daughter. The defendants had been sentenced to 13 years in prison, but the Court found that in the first instance the “real size of the case” and the “manifestly low degree of wrongdoing within the type of crime in question” were not perceived, thus reducing the each to seven years in prison.
According to court evidence, after starting to live together in Évora, in late 2017, the child was already three years old, father and mother began looking for the child “to satisfy their sexual desires, despite knowing that it is their own daughter who was in his care, care and under his care and protection. “
Between that date and the end of April 2018, “more than once,” father and mother laid the child on her back and stripped her. Then, while the mother opened and lifted her legs, the father caressed the girl’s sexual organs, having inserted the fingers in her anus. The minor will have suffered “physical pain in the anus and psychological discomfort”.
The case was reported by the kindergarten teacher after the girl began to show difficulty defecating, bleeding and resisting aids to clean those areas. In early April 2018, the girl urinated and defecated in her underpants and the educator noticed a blow-like wound in the anal area. The educator told her mother and she said she was going to take her daughter to the family doctor, which she never did, although she later assured her that she had.
The educator also made a communication of what happened to CPCJ de Évora, which triggered the respect process of inquiries. These steps had led to the “serious property of the child being subjected to unprotected hygiene and health, but also the possible subjection to sexual abuse behavior”, so she was removed from her parents and the court proceedings were now initiated. in cause.
“Libidine Instincts”
The judges found that “by acting in the manner described on at least two occasions”, the parents “acted for the ultimate purpose of obtaining sexual pleasure and satisfying their libidinous instincts, knowing that the areas of the body in which they were touched and penetration constitute an intimate patrimony and a personal reserve of the sexuality of the minor, which questioned the sound development of sexual consciousness and offended their feelings of shame, intimacy and sexual freedom, causing great physical and mental suffering. “
To the court, the girl gave credible testimony in inquiry and then in future memory. The minor confirmed that her father had touched her and “hurt,” demonstrating these acts through a doll.
The father had explained that the acts were to put suppositories and that the girl did not like them and resisted their insertion, hence the need for the mother to hold her legs. However, when suppositories were placed in front of the girl she was calm, without recognizing or associating them with anything. In fact, even tried to take it to the mouth, identifying it as “lipstick”.
One expert explained that it was possible that the injuries were caused by the defendants, but that such imputation was “scientifically indemonstrable” and therefore could not do so. Thus, the Court is unaware if the pains the girl felt “resulted from the onset of injuries by the defendants or if they were pre-existing, due to the constipation that the minor suffered, however, aggravating the pain when penetrated in the anus. by your parent’s fingers “.
From thirteen to seven years in prison
In the first instance, the judges condemned father and mother for the commission of two aggravated child sexual abuse crimes and the penalties of eight years imprisonment for each resulting in a legal penalty of 13 years. The two defendants appealed to Évora’s relationship and, invoking attenuating circumstances, requested a reduction of the sentence to no more than ten years. The Relationship agreed and reduced the sentence to seven years in prison for each.
The judges noted that the crime corresponds to an abstract criminal frame of between four and 13 years. In the first instance, it was stated that the defendants were opposed to the fact that the conduct was imputed as a direct intent, of great intensity, and the extremely high illicitude, which revealed “total disregard and indifference for their daughter of only three years of age. age and unusual boldness, coldness of character and cruelty to it. ” In their favor were the professional integration and, “as regards the accused, the absence of criminal record and the fact that he is considered a good worker, fulfilling his obligations”.
From the comparison with other cases made by the Évora Relationship, “it is clear that” the “mitigating circumstances” referred to in the appeal were not “adequately emphasized” and that “the most serious problem” does not appear to have been “perceived as the actual size of the case”. in his case, of a manifestly low degree of unlawfulness in the type of crime in question, the contours of which certainly require the application of penalties, the concrete measure of which must be clearly less than that evidenced in the judgment, maximum as regards the single penalty where disproportionality is most grossly evident “.
That is why the Relationship has chosen to convict each of the defendants for the co-perpetration of 2 aggravated child sexual abuse crimes, the penalty of 5 years imprisonment for each crime and, in legal terms, the single penalty of 7 years in prison.
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