Teacher faces 55 years for abuse of former pupil

A secondary school teacher will go before a Girona court next week accused of five counts of sexual abuse against a pupil who suffers from a disability and who at the time was 15. The prosecutor has asked that Joan Mundet Torres serve 55 years in prison, 11 for each of the offences, followed by seven years of probation and a ban on any contact with minors, as well as paying compensation of 5,000 euros to the victim.

Mundet was the victim’s teacher at a secondary school in the Selva area during the 2013/2014 school year, when she was 14. The prosecutor alleges that Mundet gained the girl’s trust and maintained contact with her on social media. The sexual abuse allegedly took place in the summer of 2015, after the teacher persuaded the girl to meet him near the cemetery in the town where she lived, before taking her in his car to a wooded area where he sexually abused her. The prosecutor acknowledges the man did not use violence, which is why he is accused of sexual abuse rather than sexual aggression. The defence, under lawyer Christian Salvador, is calling for the teacher to be acquitted.

The teacher was arrested in September 2015 in a raid on his home at the time, in the seaside town of Tossa de Mar. A judge in Santa Coloma later released him on conditional bail, ordering that he must not approach his alleged victim.