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Madrid, Jan 14 (EFE) .- The Supreme Court warns in a sentence of the process of “revictimization or secondary victimization” suffered by victims of sexual assaults due to the anguish caused by recalling the facts in the judicial procedure and urges them to avoid proceedings that are not necessary.
This is indicated in a sentence that confirms that issued by the Provincial Court of Madrid, which sentenced 30-year-old PERD to thirteen years and six months in prison for raping a 32-year-old woman while the victim was held by the arms and legs by two other men, between seven thirty and eight o’clock in the afternoon on June 10, 2013 in a portal on Calle Barco in Madrid.
The high court highlights the “secondary victimization process and the anguish that the procedure has produced” in women, “especially vulnerable due to their psychiatric antecedents.”
It adds that the lack of an initial examination of the victim by a forensic doctor when he reported the events and when he received a judicial statement when the case was reopened after the convicted person was identified through DNA, and the lack of a psychological expert report, “alleged by the defense does not suppose that the woman has hindered the investigation.
The Supreme Court found that “the reason for not being able to carry out all these procedures with the victim has been mainly the suffering that the facts and the procedure have caused her, causing a regrettable re-victimization or secondary victimization.”
This is due to the “damage (not deliberate but effective) caused by the relationship that has been established between her and the social operators, especially those of the Administration of justice, who have intervened in her process of care and recovery from the sexual assault suffered” .
For the court in the instant case, the victim’s statement is totally credible because it is clear, thorough, coherent, devoid of contradictions and persistent despite the time that has elapsed since the events.
“His presentation was calm despite the nervousness that he presented and the personal and psychological effort that he had to attend the trial and recall the aggression he was subjected to before his aggressor,” he adds.
He reports that this “was evidenced by the reaction he had when receiving the summons from the court alleging the impossibility of appearing due to the anxiety caused by the trial, which was channeled through the Office of Attention to the Victim and the psychological assistance that it was provided to him. “
“It is undeniable the pain, discomfort and suffering that both the facts and after the complaint and the procedure have caused this victim to suffer the attack and have to report it on several occasions, accentuated by the fact that a long time elapsed until the victim was located. accused “, he emphasizes.
He insists that “good proof of the victim’s pain is that after a new judicial statement as a result of the identification of the accused, he entered a psychiatric clinic and when another statement was agreed when he was arrested, it had to be suspended due to the attack of anxiety that the woman suffered and that made her medical assistance necessary for the SUMMA 112 in the Court of Instruction itself “.
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