Source: theguardian.com 7/13/23
An Italian judge has provoked outrage after clearing a school caretaker of sexually assaulting a teenage girl because the grope lasted only “a handful of seconds”.
A 17-year-old student at a school in Rome complained of being groped by the caretaker as she walked up a staircase with a friend in April 2022.
She said her trousers had fallen down from her waist and as she was pulling them up she felt a pair of hands touching her buttocks before the man grabbed her underwear and lifted her up by about an inch.
She said that when she turned around, the caretaker brushed off the grope, saying: “Love, you know I was joking.”
Antonio Avola, 66, went on trial on charges of sexual assault, with prosecutors seeking a three-year jail term if he was convicted. Avola confessed to groping the student but said it was a joke.
The judge ruled that the grope lasted “between five and 10 seconds” and was therefore too fleeting to be considered a crime.
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Italians expressed their outrage on social media by posting videos of themselves touching intimate body parts alongside the hashtags “palpata breve” (brief grope) and “10 secondi” (10 seconds).
I still don’t think that what I did was a criminal act, but it lasted less than 2 seconds, so if I’d had this judge, I’d have been free and clear.
“How is it possible? How do you time 10 seconds? Who decides?” “White Lotus” actor Paolo Camili said in a comment to Fox News Digital. “Some think that it’s a very short time, that it’s nothing, that it happens by chance… If they stand there and count for themselves, they will realize that 10 seconds are really a long time.“
Quoted from:
Social media trend mocks ‘brief groping’ ruling by Italian judge in sex assault case | Fox News
The judge’s ruling deserves mocking. 😒
When human touch becomes a crime.
One article states: “She said her trousers had fallen down from her waist and as she was pulling them up she felt a pair of hands touching her buttocks before the man grabbed her underwear and lifted her up by about an inch.”
Another article states: “The student said she was walking up a staircase when a janitor pulled her trousers down and touched her buttocks and grabbed her underwear.”
Really media???