The Third Section of the Jaén Court has sentenced a 67-year-old man to a year and a half in prison for biting off a quarter of his daughter's abuser's ear at a time when he was attacking and threatening her. of death.
In addition to the prison sentence, this man must compensate his ex-son-in-law with 8,583 euros, an amount that is below the 20,000 euros that the Prosecutor's Office and the private prosecution initially demanded.
The ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA) applies the mitigating circumstance of incomplete self-defense to the crime of injuries for which he was finally convicted.
It all happened after witnessing how his ex-son-in-law attacked and threatened to kill his daughter in front of the couple's two young daughters. The events tried and already sentenced date back to July 22, 2021, when the accused, upon arriving at her daughter's house, saw how his daughter's former romantic partner insulted her and attacked her, while shouting at her that he was leaving her. to kill.
The sentence includes as proven facts that the now convicted defendant, "fearing for the safety of his daughter, attacked in a disproportionate manner, biting her ear with such brutality that he tore off 25 percent of it."
Regarding the ex-son-in-law, he is also convicted of a minor crime of injuries for the blows he inflicted on someone who ended up tearing off a quarter of his ear. The sentence condemns him to pay a fine of 360 euros, in addition, specifically for civil liability, he must compensate his ex-father-in-law in 126.44 euros.
In addition, both defendants must compensate the Andalusian Health Service (SAS), as an injured third party, in the amounts resulting from the medical care provided to each of them.
During the trial held on March 20, the man reported that when he entered the house in a hurry to hear his daughter and his ex-partner shouting that he was going to kill her, he only felt that the aggressor pounced on him and threw him to the ground. where he began punching him in the temple. Furthermore, he testified in court that he did not remember biting her ex-son-in-law's ear.
"He was the one who lunged at me. I don't think I took a bite because I'm missing teeth," the accused said in court.
As a result of the bite and the fracture of two fingers, the daughter's ex-partner took 55 days to heal and has been left with the partial loss of her right ear. This is why the father has been convicted of a crime of injuries with deformity with the incomplete defense of self-defense on the grounds that the means used were not proportional.
This is established by the court when it points out that when he witnessed what was happening to his daughter, "he did not respond to that aggression in a proportional manner, as the means used to prevent or repel it were not rational." In this sense, he emphasizes that "although he legitimately exercised the right of defense for his daughter, the method used consisting of biting (his ex-son-in-law's) ear with such excessive brutality that it tore off part of his the same".
The sentence adds that in the present case "there is no doubt that there was an illegitimate attack" towards his daughter by his ex-partner, but it sees in the conduct of the convicted person "a defensive excess regarding the proportionality of the method used that prevents the appreciation of the complete defense of self-defense". Had this complete defense been approved, the now convicted person would have been exonerated from criminal responsibility.
For his part, during the trial the ex-son-in-law directly pointed out his ex-partner's father as the author of the bite. "It looked like a pit bull hooked on my ear," said the ex-son-in-law, who maintained that it was the father of his ex-partner, and also accused in the case, who "threw" towards him. "I had to defend myself," he told the court to justify the punches he inflicted on his ex-father-in-law.
Regarding the attack on the woman, she was already sentenced at the time by the Gender Violence Court, which sentenced the ex-partner for a crime of occasional abuse to 48 days of work for the benefit of the community, in addition to prohibition sentences. to approach and communicate, as well as the prohibition of possession and carrying of weapons.
The defendant's daughter said in the trial that when her father arrived, her ex-partner had her by the neck, telling her that he was going to kill her and her then-current partner. Before, according to her testimony, she had entered the house breaking everything with her fists. That is why the defense maintained that the loss of part of the pinna could have been due to a cut with the remains of broken ceramic vessels that were on the floor, an extreme that the coroner rejected when determining that the injury to the ear It was "more compatible" with a bite than a cut.
The sentence is not final and can be appealed to the TSJA.
