A farmer from La Fueva (Huesca) acknowledged this Wednesday before the Provincial Court of Huesca that he sexually abused five underage girls in his environment for more than a decade (2005-2017), some of whom were only five years old. During the first day of trial, he confessed before the judge that he subjected them to kisses and touching when he invited them to go for a ride on his tractor or to go see wild boars on summer nights.
Joaquín E. S., 58 years old and dedicated to farming, was arrested in 2021 following a complaint filed by the parents of one of the victims after detecting a sudden change in behavior in their daughter and being warned by specialists that it could be effect of a sexual assault situation.
That victim, born in 2008, was subjected between the ages of 5 and 11 to touching in different places, such as the defendant's farm, his van or when he took her at night to spot wild boars. The accused also threatened to kill her mother if she said something or she refused, which caused him a “situation of terror” that prevented him from telling her family what happened.
According to the accusation, these events caused eating disorders in the young woman and symptoms that can be classified “within a post-traumatic stress syndrome.” The girl has been admitted on several occasions for self-harming behavior and rejection of her own body image, and it was after one of those admissions that she told the team of psychologists and psychiatrists that she had suffered abuse at the hands of the accused.
After that first complaint, three more were filed by young people already of legal age at the time of the complaint who claimed to have been subjected to touching by the same man when they were minors. The suspect was then placed at the disposal of the head of the Boltaña Investigative Court (Huesca), whose head ordered his imprisonment.
Due to all these facts, the Prosecutor's Office is now requesting 30 years in prison for a continuous crime of sexual assault with intimidation of a minor under 16 years of age, as well as another four of sexual abuse of minors under 13 or 16 years of age, one of which is continuous. and another with rape. In addition, a private prosecution requests a 20-year restraining order on the victims.
For its part, the defense is studying an agreement in principle that would reduce the prison sentence to six years and 15 days, including compensation to the victims of 147,000 euros for moral damages that has already been paid and would be distributed among the five victims according to the degree.
In this first session of the trial, the recorded statement of one of the victims was played behind closed doors and two others also did so without the public to protect their privacy. On Thursday the two remaining victims will do so, in addition to the experts from the Institute of Legal Medicine of Aragon who examined the complainants.
