A 52-year-old Felanitx man has been sentenced to ten years for having assaulted his parents and having attempted to make his father eat a Joan Miró painting valued at 11,000 euros.
In October last year, he broke into his parents’ home, grabbed his father by the hair, dragged him down some stairs and sat on him, pressing his knee into his father’s neck. When the father, aged 81, tried to speak, he was punched in the face.
He smashed two paintings, one of them the Miró, which the artist had personally dedicated to his parents. He made small pieces from the painting and tried to force his father to eat them. “Eat it, eat your Miró painting,” he ordered, while hitting his father.
The whole incident lasted some three hours. The accused threatened his parents by saying that he had paid a hitman 2,000 euros to kill them, by waving a knife at them and by saying that he would burn the house down and the cars belonging to his parents and his brother. He also burned part of his father’s beard, threw wine over his head and spat at both his parents. He demanded the PIN code for his mother’s bank card, saying that he was going to Son Banya to buy cocaine.
He damaged various items in the house as well as the paintings. The court has ordered him to pay both parents 3,000 euros for moral damages, 800 euros each for injuries caused and 3,480 euros to his 76-year-old mother for suffering caused by the incident. He will also have to meet the cost of the two paintings that were destroyed.