A court in Palma, Majorca heard the woman “didn’t know what would have happened” if her alleged aggressors hadn’t seen the blue lights of the police patrol car in Magaluf
A British tourist has told how she was saved by police from two men accused of robbing and sexually assaulting her in the party resort of Magaluf.
The woman told a a court today she “didn’t know what would have happened” if her alleged aggressors hadn’t seen the blue lights of the police patrol car that happened to be passing by. The two men charged over the early-hours incident in March last year went on trial today at the Audiencia Provincial court in the Majorcan capital Palma.
Both are accused of robbery with violence, sexual assault, wounding, threats and resisting arrest. The pair were only identified before the start of today’s trial, due to continue on Friday, by their initials. Prosecutors are demanding a prison sentence of just over 17 years for one and 20 years for the other as well as restraining orders preventing them from going near their victim if they are convicted. They also want them to pay the British woman nearly £14,000 in compensation if they are found guilty of their crimes.
The holidaymaker told the court she was dragged to a secluded area and robbed of valuables including jewellery and her phone after leaving a bar she was in to call a relative in the UK. She recalled in her evidence shouting while she was still on the phone as her aggressors sexually assaulted her after ripping her dress, according to a report in Spanish newspaper La Razon.
One of the men is said to have tried to flee before being caught after a chase when he saw a police car approaching them during the horror incident. His alleged accomplice reportedly tried to stall the officers and prevent them from seeing the terrified British tourist on the ground by heading towards the patrol car and starting to ask what time it was and other “odd” questions that police said had made them suspicious.
The female accuser told the court: “I don’t know what would have happened if the police lights hadn’t appeared”, La Razon reported. No immediate verdict is expected at the end of the trial, with the three judges due to retire to consider their verdict which they will deliver in writing at an undefined date, probably sometime next month.
A British 18-year-old was allegedly gang-raped at a hotel in Magaluf in the early hours of August 14 last year. Five French nationals and a Swiss man were arrested and remanded in jail pending an ongoing judicial investigation and a further two suspects subsequently held in France on European Arrest Warrants. The criminal probe is still ongoing.
And a British tourist was handed a four-year prison sentence at a court in Palma earlier this year after confessing to raping his son’s female friend in a Magaluf hotel room. Spanish public prosecutors said before David McPaul Wigging’s February 5 trial they wanted him jailed for nine years if convicted of the May 9 2023 sex attack.