The entrance to the City of Justice of Castellón.Ángel Sánchez
A couple face more than 45 years in prison — 15 years and four months for the man and 30 years and four months for the woman — as suspected perpetrators of the crimes of sexual assault, assault, display of pornographic material, exhibitionism and bad behavior. Usual treatment of his five minor children in Castellón. The public prosecutor’s office is also demanding compensation of 300,000 euros for the damage and consequences suffered. The minors have been under the care of the administration since 2009, when after several unsuccessful attempts at intervention by the social services in the Castellón delegation, their legal situation was ordered to be suspended. They were between two and ten years old at the time. Today three are grown up.
The five were admitted to a reception center in May 2010 “after identifying low indicators of risk due to negligence in their care and supervision,” according to prosecutors’ indictment, referring to “inadequate nutrition, clothing in poor condition.” the “thinness, developmental delay and school absenteeism” of the children or the “absolute lack of reaction and cooperation of the parents”.
The accused couple, who have been provisionally released for this reason, should have been on the bench this Monday, but the second section of the Provincial Court of Castellón stayed the trial in principle until tomorrow, Tuesday, when the children’s mother failed to appear. against whom the judge has issued a search warrant, arrest and make the woman available to ensure her participation in the hearing. The session was suspended because it could not be found. The accused appeared.
As reported by the Valencian Supreme Court, the judge will decide whether the trial will continue in the coming days. In any case, it would take place behind closed doors at the request of the parties.
According to the preliminary findings of the public prosecutor’s office, the defendants had five children together, for whom they did not have the slightest care from birth because they “seriously and repeatedly” disregarded the duties associated with parental authority.
The accused had some income in prison, in the case of the father longer. The same brief reveals that the couple’s five children, during the time they lived with their parents until they passed into the care of the youth center’s administration, “were not only victims of a situation of total abandonment resulting from the neglect at all levels of life”, but this situation was made worse by “repeated behavior of a degrading nature” against minors, victims of psychological and physical abuse. The little ones were “cruelly” attacked by the defendants. “The defendant has her children in a dominant and actively exposed to such a situation without any resistance or defenses from the other parent who was absent from prison because of their income.”
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Prosecutors say the minors were so afraid of their mother’s aggression that they hid the objects she had used to commit them (sticks, buckles, irons and even boiling kitchen containers) to avoid harm.
Emotional abuse was also constant: the minors regularly heard from the mother that she did not love them, that they were not her children and that she should have “aborted” them.
The two accused, addicted to cocaine and heroin, consumed daily in the presence of their children. Three of them were also responsible for providing the type of substance and needles to their parents, who occasionally came to try the drug, prosecutors say. The children were used for begging and accompanied their parents in case of petty theft.
The couple had sex in the presence of the minors and “frequently watched films with pornographic content” with them. One of the minors “began to engage in sexual behavior inappropriate for his age, touching himself, imitating adults, even with his own sisters.”
Another minor, between the ages of 6 and 7, was “the object of sexual conduct, abuse and aggression of this kind” in the family home by a relative and one of the partners the mother had during the father’s stays in prison. The “serious and prolonged” physical, mental, emotional and sexual abuse suffered by three of the minors affected their mental health. They require continued therapeutic care for their “serious relationship and behavioral problems,” which include post-traumatic stress, depression, or self-injurious behavior.