A man who was cleared of raping a teenage girl because a judge ruled that she should have known what could have happened to her has finally been jailed after the ruling was overturned.
The alleged assault took place in 2019 when the man, now 31, was left alone with a 17-year-old girl in a car in the Italian city of Macerata.
During a trial in 2019, judges acquitted the then-25-year-old after they concluded that the incident did not count as sexual assault because the teen was not a virgin and because she should have known of the consequences of getting into a car with a man on her own.
The controversial ruling was today overturned by the Ancona Court of Appeal, with the man sentenced to three years behind bars.
The appeal came after a request from the Attorney General due to the sensitivity of the case involving a minor.
The girl’s lawyer, Fabio Maria Galiani, hailed the verdict on Tuesday, saying: ‘Justice has been done. We’ve returned to 2025 after a first instance sentence that plunged us back to the Middle Ages.’
The victim, a foreigner who came to Macerata for a study abroad programme, had gone out with a friend and two other men before she was ‘left in a car’ with her attacker after her friend went off with the other man.
In 2019, the court ruled that the girl had ‘already had intercourse, therefore she was in a position to imagine the possible developments of the situation’.
A man who was cleared of raping a teenage girl in Macerata, Italy, because a judge ruled that she should have known what could have happened to her has finally been jailed after the ruling was overturned. File photo shows a view of the town centre, Macerata
Judges also said that teen ‘had not resisted in any way, nor called for help’.
These conclusions were strongly opposed by the victim and her lawyers, who argued that the girl ‘always reiterated that she did not want any contact with the defendant; she even tried to push him away by punching him, but he would not move’.
The 2019 ruling drew a storm of criticism, with MP Laura Boldrini stating: ‘Once again, a woman is denied justice for the violence she has suffered because the culture of consent is lacking.
‘There is a lack of education to understand that only yes is yes, that a woman may not be able to fight back during violence because it is often impossible: fear, shock, and pain paralyze and make any reaction impossible. Enough! It is no longer acceptable for the victim to be put in the dock.’
Last year, a Spanish court acquitted a man who raped a 12-year-old girl after it ruled that their relations were just a part of the Romani culture.
The court in Ciudad Real in central Spain took into account the socio-cultural context of the Gypsy ethnic group to reduce the sentence for sexual assault and abuse of a minor by a 20-year old man.
This resulted in the perpetrator, who left his 12-year-old victim pregnant with twins, being acquitted.
The ruling held that the relationship was ‘always consensual within the framework of a romantic relationship’, adding that the two were ‘close in age and maturity’.
The girl was first found to be pregnant after an examination by a doctor, who alerted authorities, leading to the man’s arrest.
Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 11 years, but the court ruled to acquit.
The age of consent in Spain is 16, meaning anyone younger cannot consent to sex. However, the court ruled that the man should benefit from the legal exception.
