The parents of a 9-year-old boy who wounded a friend with a pellet in Barcelona were sentenced

The incident happened June 24, 2018 at the address of I. at Piera (Anoia – Barcelona). C.’s family had come to the house along with others to have dinner. At dawn, around 1.15 am, the two boys were playing with the rest of the children in a room on the upper floor of the house. At that moment, the IC took a compressed air rifle from a closet and fired at his friend at a very low distance, about 10 centimeters. The pellet entered through the left shoulder blade and embedded itself at the base of the lung. He suffered a broken rib and a mild hemothorax. The wounds required medical treatment and took about 90 days to heal after being hospitalized for 48 hours.

The resolution details that the defendants, parents of IC they were owners of the carbine and, in addition, “aware of its potential harm”, while they knew that the son played with her on previous occasions. They kept it loaded in a cupboard without a lock. In the understanding of the judge, they did not adopt “any type of minimum precaution required”, which meant that the son, “in a context of gambling and showing off to the minors”, shot the girl.

Bloody girl

The legal sources consulted by this newspaper assure that the adults who were in the house that night testified that they heard the shot and that they quickly went to the room where they found the little girl bloodied. At first, the witnesses indicated that they did not really know what had happened. It was the declaration of a ‘mosso’, Close to the owners of the house, who, pressed by the questions of the private prosecution, acknowledged that he had spoken with the children who were at the home and they explained that it was I. who shot.

At the start of the trial, the prosecution modified the conclusions provisional, after a prior agreement between the defense of the two implicated and the private prosecution, exercised by the lawyer Javier de Benito, of the Vosseler Abogados law firm. At the hearing, therefore, the lawyers expressed their agreement with the facts and the sentence. The judge then issued a verdict in voice, declaring it final.

Installment payment

Subsequently, the judge accepted the defense’s request to suspend the execution of the six months in prison for a minimum of two years, as long as “the parents do not commit another offense during that period.” Another requirement was that compensation will be paid to the family of the injured girl. The first 5,000 euros were already disbursed last September and the rest will be paid in installments until 2023. Despite the agreement, the prosecution’s request is at the highest level of the crime of reckless injuries, which punishes those who cause an injury by recklessness that “undermines” bodily integrity or physical and mental health and requires medical assistance, as is the case.