Seven Years Prison for Canary Islands Psychiatrist Who Sexually Abused Patient

December 9, 2021

The Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court has confirmed the sentence to 7 years in prison and 3 and a half years of special disqualification for the exercise of the profession of doctor and psychotherapist to a psychiatrist for sexually abusing a patient in Santa Cruz de Tenerife .

The court has dismissed the appeal filed by the convicted person against the sentence of the Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (capital city of Canary Islands), which imposed on him for a continuing crime of sexual abuse with carnal access to the prison sentence and disqualification, as well as payment of compensation of 20,000 euros to the victim for the damages suffered.

The Court rejects the appellant’s thesis, which argued that the content of the ‘sms’ and ‘whatsapp’ messages between the complainant and the accused, provided by the victim herself to the procedure, it follows that the relationships were totally consensual, and that they were not the “inability to say no” alleged by the victim can be justified.

It points out that the sentence under appeal did analyze the discharge evidence consisting of the ‘sms’ and ‘whatsapp’ messages, the content of which, according to the appellant, calls into question the version of the complainant, “and that they must be interpreted in the context of that relationship of superiority between the accused psychiatrist and his patient, the victim, and as the Public Prosecutor’s Office points out in its statement opposing the motive, it is not simply a relationship between two adults, each married, who freely agree to secretly maintain between them a ‘affair’ that lasts in time for a period of time “.

It adds that, on the contrary, it is a situation that “declares the proven fact in which the accused is the woman’s psychiatrist and is so for almost 9 years during which he begins to have sexual relations with her after knowing all the intimacies through his profession. , all the weaknesses, all the emotional springs and presenting himself as the person who in exchange for receiving money for it could cure her of her anorexia and bulimia problems “.

The Chamber remarks that it is in this context that the events occur, in which the prevailing situation appears with dazzling clarity.

In this sense, it specifies that the victim periodically went to seek medical advice, medication, and guidelines for his cure and “meets a person who abuses that situation and causes a sexual relationship in which the consent of the victim appears completely flawed. “.

IT IS NOT A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EQUALS

The sentence states that “it is true that in the messages, as the appellant says, texts that suggest a relationship between two lovers can be read on many occasions, but things change if the particular relationship between the two is repaired: they are not only two adults, it is about a woman medicated by the accused, trusting in her medical judgment, in her knowledge of the mind and the problems she had, and the psychiatrist who assisted her for 9 years, lowering the position of the doctor to a a mere relationship between equals is not reasonable and the Court does not. “

It also indicates that the victim’s testimony is consistent and persistent in its incrimination and that the judgment under appeal considered it credible and sufficient to prove the facts.

In addition, it emphasizes that it was corroborated by other elements – witness statements, expert reports – that “firmly and solidly underpin the report of the complainant that when she had sexual relations, her consent was not free and conscious, but rather she was manipulated by the defendant, who continued to treat her therapeutically.”

Source: “A psychiatrist is sentenced to seven years in prison for sexually abusing a patient in Santa Cruz de Tenerife,” Europa Press, Dec. 2, 2021, URL: https://tenerifeweekly.com/2021/12/02/a-psychiatrist-is-sentenced-to-seven-years-in-prison-for-sexually-abusing-a-patient-in-santa-cruz-de-tenerife/