The defenses only admit a fight between the complainant and the three defendants and argue that these facts are time-barred.

The three defendants in the dock on the day the trial began. / Jose Navarro

A. Martínez 07 OCT 2025 20:31

Despite the retraction of the victim, who said that she made it all up, the Alicante Prosecutor’s Office has maintained the request for eleven years in prison for the three accused of sexual assault in Els Poblets. The complainant had had a romantic relationship with a minor, a relative of the defendants and maintained at the time that he suffered the aggression because they did not approve of it. According to the complaint, later withdrawn, the defendants would have impaled him during the beating, for which they were accused of sexual assault. The defenses, among which is the lawyer Francisco Galiana Botella, only admit a fight, which would constitute a minor crime of injury that would already be prescribed. The injuries presented by the victim were not serious and during the fight his mobile phone broke. The only serious injury would be the one derived from the alleged episode of impalement.

The trial has been seen for sentencing this Tuesday in the Provincial Court. A day earlier than planned, since a good part of the experts who were summoned for this day have been resigned. The defendants are the father of the minor, a brother of the minor and a son-in-law.

Forensic reports

Forensic reports have not shed much light on the alleged sexual assault. The complainant, when changing his version, blamed a hemorrhoid problem for the injuries he presented. The forensic doctors pointed out that they were compatible with that problem, although it could not be ruled out that the attack could have taken place. More blunt has been the report of another expert provided by the defense, who has explained that necessarily the aggression as described in the initial complaint should have caused much more serious injuries than those presented by the complainant. Not in vain; this expert recalled that impalement was a method of torture used during the Middle Ages.

The events occurred on November 6, 2020. The complainant had told the Civil Guard that the defendants had beaten him by kicking and punching him all over the body, after reproaching him for the relationship he had with the minor. The young woman was 15 years old and he was 24. At the start of the trial on Monday, he retracted all the accusations and said he made it all up. He only admitted that he had a fight with the young woman’s father. “He pushed me, I hit him three times and he hit me,” she said, repeating on several occasions that “out of fear and revenge, I made it up.”

Given the suspicions that behind this change of version there could be some type of coercion or threats, the Public Prosecutor’s Office has chosen to maintain the accusation against the three involved. The complainant’s family and the injured party himself have denied the existence of these threats. “Since everything happened, I haven’t spoken to them again. I have made my life and they have continued with theirs. They are happy and so am I,” said the complainant. At the beginning of the hearing, members of the Civil Guard  arrived for fear that there could be clashes between the two families. However, the presence was not necessary, since there was no incident of any kind. The complainant’s sentimental relationship with the minor occurred during the months in which he was living at his uncle’s house in Els Poblets, who had been a neighbor of her family for several years.