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An Irish man accused by police of being a paedophile who allegedly offered gifts to teenagers to gain their trust before touching them and obtaining sexual photos has been acquitted in Malaga.
The public prosecutor's office asked for a 20-year prison sentence and although the man was convicted by the provincial court, Andalucía's high court overturned the sentence and acquitted the man.
The court found the cornerstone of the accusation was missing: the testimony of the main victim, who has not been located and therefore could attend the trial.
The accused, a 73-year-old Irish man, sat in the dock last year to face a 20-year prison sentence sought by the prosecution for crimes of corruption of minors involving four teenagers. After the trial, the provincial court handed down a sentence in which he was acquitted of the charges for three of the victims and sentenced for only one of them - the main one, a minor identified as M. - to eight and a half years in prison.
However, his defence appealed the conviction on the grounds that the principle of presumption of innocence had been violated and that the exonerating or extenuating circumstance relating to the psychiatric condition diagnosed by the forensic doctor, who determined the defendant suffered from paedophilia, which is sexual arousal or pleasure through activities with minors, had not been applied.
The high court upheld the appeal, considering the main evidence for the prosecution was the testimony of M., who gave evidence to the police and also to the court at the start of legal proceedings, but who could not be located for the trial and whose statement was therefore not taken in the presence of all the parties so it could be used as pre-constituted evidence.
As a result, the defendant was acquitted of the only offence for which he had been convicted. The prosecution can appeal to the supreme court.
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