SPANISH LAW COURTS FAIL VICTIM OF BRITISH ABUSE

A Spanish reader arrived at the Leader office last week, with a story to make us Brits feel ashamed. Ramon and his partner Maria Antonio rented out the bar-restaurant that Maria owns, in Pinar de Campoverde.

A British couple took over the lease of the bar, but after a few months stopped paying the rent. Ramon was reasonable, and said that if they couldn't pay the rent they would have to leave. He gave them plenty of time to remove their belongings from the bar.

However, three months later they were still there, despite the fact that the bar had been closed all this time. Ramon asked an English speaking friend to tell them that he really needed the keys back immediately. This was in January 2009.

He eventually received the keys in July 2009. The feeling of relief was short felt though. When Ramon went to check the installations he was so shocked he was speechless.

The bar had been completely destroyed, with the toilets smashed, by the looks of it with a sledge hammer, the electricity cables had been pulled out of the walls and ceilings and were hanging lose, the ceiling had been smashed, the windows painted red and red paint had been thrown over the walls and floor, and to top it all, a racist insult was painted on the wall.

Ramon decided to go to the Guardia Civil to denounce the matter. As soon as the officers went into the bar restaurant they said they had never in their lives seen such destruction. Report forms were filled out and the police even visited the British couple, and told them they would be called to court at sometime in the future.

That was in August. Ramon and his partner waited for the letter from Orihuela Law Courts, but months passed and nothing arrived. He eventually decided to go and find out for himself what was going on, and made the trip to Orihuela. When he eventually found the new law courts, he was told that the case had been archived or stopped. Had he not visited the law courts he would still be none the wiser.

He was given three days to appeal this decision, but would need a lawyer to do so. As he couldn't afford to pay a lawyer himself Ramon was offered legal aid, but he couldn't see how he could organise it all, while living so far from Orihuela, not even having enough money to make endless phone calls.

What he cannot understand is why the case was stopped, when it was such a clear example of unacceptable behaviour and he believes, racism. As he says, there are over 100 different nationalities living reasonably harmoniously in Orihuela, surely this kind of behaviour should be knocked on the head before it becomes more widespread.

The law courts in Spain are famously slow. There have been highly publicised cases of rapists repeatedly abusing new victims while awaiting being called to court, or paedophiles left free to prey on children when they fail to appear in court and cannot be found because they have moved to new locations. The whole system needs a complete overhaul, which will unfortunately cost a huge amount of money, which the government doesn't want to spend at present.