Cassation: sending harsh photos by WhatsApp to a minor is sexual violence

It is legitimate to challenge the crime of sexual violence to those who send hard photos through WhatsApp to a minor, a crime for which preventive detention in prison is foreseen. The third criminal section of the Supreme Court, with a ruling presented today, dismissed the appeal of the defense of a 32-year-old young man, investigated for having sent a series of “allusive and sexually explicit” WhatsApp messages to a minor , along with a hard photo and the Request to receive a picture of the same type from her “under threat of posting the chat” on other social networks and hot pages.

The Milan Review Court had confirmed the arrest ordered by the investigating judge for the suspect, so the defense went to the Supreme Court claiming that, in the case in question, the crime of sexual violence was not open to challenge, but, in the limit, that of the solicitation of a minor, because, the defender pointed out, “the sexual act was missing”, since “there was no encounter” between the two, as well as the ‘child grooming’, which is ” the solicitation practice – observed the defense in the appeal – of a minor subject on the internet, using psychological techniques aimed at overcoming his resistance and obtaining the confidence to sexually abuse him ”.

According to the defense, therefore, “the suspect’s conduct had not affected the minor’s sexual sphere due to the absence of any request for sexual intercourse aimed at satisfying his own impulses.”

The Supreme Court, for its part, considered “solid and well-motivated” the decision of the Magazine, according to which “sexual violence was fully integrated, even in the absence of physical contact with the victim, when the sexual acts involved sexual corporeity of the injured person and had as their objective and were capable of compromising the primary good of individual freedom in the perspective of satisfying or awakening the sexual instinct “: in particular, the” serious indications of guilt “of the alleged crime were recognized” in the induction to the exchange of erotic photos, in the conversation about past sexual experiences and erotic tastes, in the growing threat of disseminating the talk in public ”, explains the Court.

Finally, the ‘Palazzaccio’ judges considered the decision to order the custody of the suspect in prison – who, meanwhile, obtained house arrest – to be correct due to the fact that “he perpetrated the same conduct against other minors, showing that they do not know how to control their impulses “, being able” to continue threatening the victims as well as to reiterate the criminal behavior through the use of computer tools “.