The Provincial court of Seville has been reduced from 7 years and 9 months to 2 years and 8 months in prison the sentence of a Criminal court of Santiago Romero, exdecano of the Faculty of Education Sciences of the University of Seville (US) between 1997 and 2009, for sexually abusing three female teachers. According to the Court Superior of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA), the First Section has been estimated partially the resource interposed by the defendant and considered that the aforementioned crimes attends the extenuating circumstance of a high standard of undue delay.
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Amparo Díaz, lawyer of one of the plaintiffs, believes that the downgrade is performed by applying an article that should be reviewed in terms of gender-based violence. “In pursuing these issues, the courts are faced with a highly complex legal and human that makes the judgments are delayed a lot. You should change this article because you’re taking the penalty to someone who has not been rehabilitated or has changed of attitude. To the proven facts, Santiago Romero has always said that the accusations were inventions of the professors”, he has explained this Friday, Diaz, who represents L. G.
“This is bad news, because we know all the suffering that they have passed the three companions. A case such as this, that has occurred in a public university, should have had a judgment exemplary, and with this reduction it is very possible that you do not have to enter prison. The truth is that it seems a joke in bad taste, own of a day as morning,” said Jesus Castillo, of the Union Andalusian of Workers (SAT) of the university of seville.
“The exdecano, suspended from their functions by the University of Seville in 2016, when he met the first sentence, is retired from this year, once it has met 70,” said a spokesperson of the university.
“What is positive is that this judgment confirms an abusive behavior continued relying on partners. That is to say, confirms a power structure is corrupt in the university,” concluded the lawyer, who foretold that this judgment can be appealed in a remarkable way to the Supreme Court. “Although my client has not yet decided if we will do so,” he added.
The judgment, of 20 December, it considered proven that “the defendant wine making ostentation of his power academic from the outset, making it clear [to the teachers] that he was the one who sent in the Physical Education Department of the Faculty of Science of Education, which was or not the director of the department and form or not part of the commissions it was he who took the relevant decisions in terms of teaching, research, recruitment (…) coming to pass that those who are not logged into their claims could have problems to keep their places.”
“in The same way, and with the cooperation of other members of the teaching staff, the defendant pointed out to the people who have not behaved according to what he meant by correct, so that remained, from the point of view of a teacher, isolated from the rest of the people close to the accused,” continues the statement.
The Penal Court number 2 of Seville, in a judgment of 29 December 2016, sentenced Romero to 2 years and 3 months in prison for each of the three offenses of continuous sexual abuse and to 1 year in jail for a crime of injury-psychic, as well as to pay 50,000 euros to one of the victims and with 30,000 euros to the other two by damages to physical and psychological and moral damages. He also imposed to the sentenced the prohibition of approaching within 300 meters of the three teachers and communicate with them for 5 years, while the university was condemned as responsible subsidiary civil.
The First Section, in a judgment of this 20 of December, admits “the complexity of the cause”, by the “extension” of the appeals of the accused and of the teachers and for the development of a procedure that began with “the commission’s first fact declared tested at the end of 2006”, so that he spent “a period exceeding eight years” until the first sentence. “The concrete extent of the penalty imposed is disproportionate (…) not only in regard to the time elapsed since the commission of the first episode in 2006, but because the complaint was filed approximately two years after the commission of the fact imputed to the appellant and consist strikes relevant in the processing of this cause is not caused by the actions of the accused”, explains the rapporteur.
For these reasons, the Hearing imposed the defendant to 1 year of imprisonment for the continuing offence of sexual abuse on one of the teachers and 10 months in prison for each of the other two offenses continuous sexual abuse committed on the other two complainants. The court absolves the exdecano of the crime of injury psychic for which he was sentenced in the first instance to one year in jail, considering that there are no requirements to punish separately the impairment suffered by a victim in his psychic health as a result of the continuous offence of sexual abuse.
The First Section rejects the rest of the grounds alleged by the counsel for the defendant in his appeal and also dismissed the appeals made by two of the victims. One of them asked that the defendant was convicted of harassment and sexual harassment, while another claimed a compensation of 120,000 euros.
