Many residents might have lived here for decades but it is more than likely that they are unaware that the minimum age for consensual sex in Spain is only 13, unlike the rest of Europe were it varies between 14 and 16 – Malta is the exception where it is 18.
Precisely because of the surprisingly low age limit the following occurred involving a 39-year-old man and his 13-year-old girlfriend, with the parents powerless to prevent it. Nobody could have foreseen that the man would go on a gun-rampage, shooting dead the girl and another person from the village, before shooting himself in the head and thus ending a police siege. But he didn’t die immediately, but was instead rushed to hospital in a critical condition, dying later that evening.
The whole sorry incident took place in Salobral in Castilla-La Mancha on the 22nd/23rd of October. Salobral, with a population of just over 1,000, was both terrorised and rocked by what took place. On that fateful Saturday, Juan Carlos Alfaro Aparicio allegedly fired several shots, point-blank at 13-year-old Almudena. But she wasn’t the only victim, because 40-year-old lorry-driver Agustín Delicado just happened to step outside his front door to smoke a cigarette, came face-to-face with Juan Carlos, who shot him dead.
Juan Carlos had a firearms licence and several weapons, including an automatic rifle. His other passions were motorbikes… and of course, this girl, barely older than a child. The mother had denounced the relationship before the Guardia Civil, but as it wasn’t ‘illegal’ they said that they could nothing. There was a harrowing scene on the national TV, with the mother berating the Guardia Civil officer after the shooting, saying, “You react now, when it is too late – are you happy now!”
The tension between the family of the victim and the family of the alleged murderer is growing, as can be expected in such a small village and with the two families living within sight of each other.
And is always the case, only when something truly tragic causes tremors across the social fabric of Spain has the subject of the inadequate minimum age for consensual sex being debated and the Governing saying that it is looking into bringing the minimum age up to at least 15, which for many, is still too young.
(News: Spain – foto: teinteresa.es)