A HIGH Court judge has acquitted a man who spent three years in preventative prison for having sex with a minor, on the grounds that it was a mutually consenting relationship.

The accused, Igor S., from Moldavia, was 28 at the time and applying to be a legal immigrant in Spain.

He had been taken on as a domestic help by a couple in Logroño (La Rioja) during which time he slept with their 15-year-old daughter on at least five occasions.

Sexual abuse of a minor carries a sentence of up to 12 years.

But judge Adolfo Prego pointed out that according to the Penal Code, the minimum age at which a person can legally consent to sexual relations in Spain is 13, meaning anyone who sleeps with a person not yet in their teens is considered to be guilty of paedophilia.

Between the ages of 13 and 18, a person is not legally able to consent to sex where he or she is physically or mentally backward, suffers from a mental illness or the person responsible takes advantage of his ‘superiority’ in order to do so.

Prego did not find that the teenager was in a ‘position of inferiority’ and therefore ‘unable to consent’, given that her older boyfriend was a servant and reliant upon the family for support.

The judge did not consider that the girl’s lack of formal education – having dropped out after first year of high school – was a factor in deciding whether she was old enough to agree to the relationship.

Igor S. has been released after having been in custody since September 30, 2005.