Alex Trelinski
SPAIN’S highest legal body has backed the right of a newspaper to publish the full name of an abuser who beat up his girlfriend in an Elche house in 2011.
The Supreme Court ruled that ‘in the face of the scourge of gender violence, it was undeniable that details should be published’.
It added that the regional Informacion newspaper was totally within its rights to reveal the man’s identity under freedom of information rules.
The abuser took Informacion’s publishers, Editorial Prensa Alicantina, to court on the legal basis that his honour, and that his privacy, and that of his family, had been violated.
He unsuccessfully tried to claim €24,500 in damages from the paper.
The 29-year-old abuser was sentenced to four years and eight months in jail for locking his partner in the closet in their home, in addition to attacking her.
Informacion reported on his sentence handed down by the Alicante Provincial Court in 2012, when they published his photo and revealed his full name.
Lower courts threw out the convicted abuser’s legal action against the paper, but he appealed the verdict to the Supreme Court, who after nine years finally put the issue to bed.
