On May 14, 2019, in the Murcian town of Archena, Celso had an appointment at around a quarter to nine with Covadonga, a Paraguayan day laborer hired by an ETT for the company in which Celso was in charge.
He, from Murcia, was then 64 years old and was his boss.
It was apricot picking season.
He came for her in a white van, a Ford Tourneo with the Agarcampo logo on the side, and drove to a farm known as Los Chatos de Yéchar.
When they arrived, Covadonga asked him what they were doing there and Celso's response was: "Shut up, if you don't want problems with me, do what I ask you to do."
He didn't ask for anything.
He forced her to perform fellatio on him, he raped her and then threatened to leave her and her “countrymen” without work if he told what had happened.
Even so, she denounced, and he spent half a year in jail, between May and November of that year.
However, the court ruling for that crime, signed in the Provincial Court of Murcia on May 3 of this year, is the payment of the procedural costs - which the convicted person delivered to the victim before the trial, in addition to 6,000 euros in concept of compensation for damages—, the prohibition to approach the victim, five years of probation in which the convicted person agrees not to commit a crime and comply with a sexual education program.
Why?
Because there was agreement between the parties, as explained in the sentence, which gives fictitious names to both the aggressor and the victim.
In other words, Celso recognized the crime and the penalties that both the Prosecutor's Office and the private prosecution requested;
as has also happened in the case of the rape of a woman by two policemen in Estepona (Málaga).
A process that left the deputy spokeswoman for Judges for Democracy, Isabel Tobeña, “amazed”, explaining that although it is sometimes “incomprehensible”, these agreements do occur.
She also affirms that the Prosecutor's Office not only can, but "has the duty" to continue with said process in these cases, even if the victim withdraws from the criminal process, as stated in the Penal Code itself.
Article 191 establishes that "in order to proceed for the crimes of aggression, harassment or sexual abuse, a complaint from the aggrieved person, his legal representative or a complaint from the Public Prosecutor's Office will be required", and, as Tobeña emphasizes, that article also establishes that " In crimes of sexual violence, the forgiveness of the victim or the legal representative does not extinguish the criminal action or the responsibility of that class.
However, the conformity is given "for different reasons," says the judge.
Among others, "depending on the characteristics" of the process: "For example, if they believe they do not have enough evidence without the victim, they decide not to continue."
As has happened in this case, in which Celso is released because he is "a primary offender, has no criminal record prior to the offense being prosecuted, is not obliged to satisfy any civil liability and does not exceed two years in prison for the sentence that is intended to be suspended. ”.
Despite the proven facts.
In that story you can read how they gave each other the phone number that same morning, May 14, 2019. How when they arrived at that farm, she verbalized her desire to leave, how he grabbed her by the arms, pushed her and got into the back of the van.
Also how she tried to escape several times and he hit her all those times so she couldn't do it: in the face, holding her hair.
How he took off her clothes and penetrated her “vaginally —without any protection— until he finished the act inside her vagina while telling her: “You're a whore, if you've stayed with me and gotten in the car you already knew what was going to happen."
And also how later he "tightly grabbed" her hair "and pushed her face against his member until he put it in her mouth", "forcing her to fellate him".
When she finished, he told her: “Get dressed and don't say anything that no one will believe you.
If you say anything about this, both you and your countrymen are going to lose your job”.
At that first moment, she filed a complaint and went to the hospital: she had injuries to her thighs, arms, left shoulder, lip, right buttock and back.
He spent half a year in prison.
But at the beginning of the judicial sessions, "after the accused recognized all the facts that were the subject of the accusation, the prosecutor modified her indictment in the sense of qualifying the facts as constituting a crime of sexual assault" with "the mitigating measures of reparation of the damage [for the 6,000 euros delivered to the victim before the trial in addition to the procedural costs] and the late confession.”
The prosecutor requested for the accused the sentence "of two years in prison, accessory, and prohibition to approach Ms. Covadonga within 500 meters of her home, workplace or any other place that she frequents, and to communicate with her in any form and means of communication, computerized, telematic, written, verbal or visual contact for a period of seven years;
and, lastly, the measure of supervised freedom for a period of five years consisting of the aforementioned prohibitions on contact and communication.”
When the private prosecution "fully adhered to the fiscal qualification and specified that they had received prior to the trial the totality of the civil liability that they claimed, amounting to 6,000 euros, and the procedural costs", it was not "considered necessary to continue the trial, therefore, it was declared seen for sentencing by strict agreement of the parties.”
And so, a crime of rape is settled with a few thousand euros and a sex education course.
