A Palma court has sentenced a British male tourist to pay a fine of 180 euros for having touched the buttocks of a French female tourist when they were by the pool at a hotel in Magalluf in July 2020.
The sentence has now been finalised, the hearing having been heard via videoconference in September last year. The defendant, by then 19, said he could barely remember anything that happened that day because he had been drinking. However, he did recall that "suddenly the girl slapped me twice and I apologised if I had bothered her".
The incident happened around 4pm on July 28. The female tourist told the court that she and friends were in the pool with a group of boys. As she got out of the pool, one of them went towards her. "He grabbed my butt." She explained that he apologised immediately, that she slapped him twice and that the boy's friends laughed.
The judge, accepting that the defendant had been under the influence of alcohol and recognising his guilty plea, took account of Supreme Court jurisprudence, which has stated that, in similar cases, this is a criminal offence of a minor nature. Touching the buttock with an open hand is not always sexual abuse.
The Prosecutor's Office had maintained that there was sexual abuse and had called for a fine of 3,240 euros.