María Josefa OA, an employee of the Galician Health Service (Sergas) in the admission department of the Xeral Cíes Hospital in Vigo, accessed her daughter's clinical history on 68 occasions a decade ago, allegedly without her consent.
The patient, who had health problems derived from eating disorders and, according to her mother, suffered abuse from her partner, denounced her, accusing her of being obsessed with controlling her life since she became independent and went to live with her boyfriend in the Canary Islands.
Since then, the woman has been immersed in a judicial ordeal.
She was acquitted twice – in 2019 and 2021 – by the Pontevedra Court of a crime of revealing secrets by an official, but this week she has sat on the bench again.
The resources of the accusation against the opinions of the fifth section of the Pontevedra Court, based in Vigo, led to the repetition of the first trial and, later, to the annulment of the second sentence.
In both cases, both in 2019 and in 2021, the Superior Court of Justice of Galicia (TSXG) appreciated a lack of motivation in the judicial rulings, for which the accused has returned to the bench.
She faces a sentence of 4 years in prison, 9 years of disqualification and a fine of 7,200 euros, in addition to compensation of 15,000 euros requested by her daughter for moral damages.
With a court made up of magistrates from outside this Galician jurisdiction to guarantee the impartiality of the court, the hearing once again focused on the complicated relationship between mother and daughter and once again there were doubts as to whether the official's actions were criminal.
The prosecutor maintains that these intrusions into privacy, which took place between 2012 and 2014, cannot be justified by the defendant's concern for her daughter, but by her attempt to "scrutinize" her private life. .
The public ministry does not consider it credible that the complainant gave her mother permission to access her file because the relationship between the two "was non-existent and pathological."
However, he has acknowledged that there is no evidence that the accused spread the information obtained.
The mother, a widow with two other children, only responded to questions from her lawyer.
In her statement last Monday, she insisted again and again that she always acted with her daughter's consent because she was going through a very difficult personal stage when in 2007 she went to the Canary Islands with her boyfriend, who, according to the defendant, was a consumer of cocaine, and who came to denounce for ill-treatment.
After her breakup, the girl returned to her mother, although she later returned to live with her partner, for which she has recognized that the relationship between the two was very difficult.
"She asked Me for tests and medication consultations because she had psychiatric problems and depression, and I just wanted to help her," the defendant proclaimed.
“My mother was controlling”
The private accusation brought by her daughter has tried to deny the version of the mother whom she came to blame for the psychological disorders suffered by the daughter and which, according to her, were aggravated as a result of violating her privacy.
"My mother was a controlling woman who was obsessed with me and I never authorized her to look at my records," she said.
However, the complainant admitted that he never reproached her mother for accessing her clinical data because he had no relationship with her, so he limited himself to reporting her to Sergas.
In the preceding sentences, it was found that the accused accessed her daughter's file but without being able to prove that she had done so without her daughter's authorization.
Her acquittal rulings even warned that there could be "spurious reasons in the complaint" due to the bad relationship between the two, for which she exonerated her mother against the criteria of the Prosecutor's Office.
“We refer to the close link between the parties that leads us to consider the existence of unwritten consent as a reasonable hypothesis, and without failing to assess the dysfunctional nature of the relationship, the truth is that this has not prevented over time that between mother and daughter there have been periods in which they have maintained a relationship and in which they have lived in the family home ”, one of those rulings affected.
On previous occasions, the court only came across the contradictory versions of the parties, having to assess whether the victim's statement, which denies consent, "can be valid by itself to undermine the principle of presumption of innocence," explained the judge. court.
The TSXG ordered a repeat trial considering that the rules for distribution of the burden of proof had been violated, that there was an error in its assessment and that a reasoned explanation was lacking.
The accused made use of her right to have her last word to deny all the accusations: "I'm sorry, I didn't lie but my daughter did and she has deceived everyone."
"I adore my daughter," she concluded during the second trial,
Exclusive content for subscribers
read without limits
subscribe
I'm already a subscriber