A former Compromís councilor and his wife sentenced to 16 years for abusing their foster daughter

The Provincial Court of Valencia has sentenced Joan Sorribes, former councilor for Compromís in Alfafar, a municipality in the Valencia metropolitan area, for sexually abusing his foster daughter when she was a minor.

The Third Section sentence imposes 16 years in prison for Sorribes and another 14 for his wife, Carmen, for subjecting the girl to sexual practices. The sentence condemns the ex-regidor's partner as a necessary cooperator of the attacks and the couple must compensate the victim with 30,000 euros.

The young woman denounced the events in 2019 after completing the foster care process at her own request. The victim took the step after learning that the couple wanted to adopt a little girl. “I couldn't make a girl go through that,” she denounced.. A niece of the convicted couple helped him report the facts to the Civil Guard.

[The foster child of the Compromís militant: Joan stripped and abused me every night]

The trial was held last February and the Public Ministry was forceful in its accusation and recounted the practices that the girl had to endure, who at the time of the events was 14 years old.. The content of the sentence has been advanced this Friday by the newspaper Levante-EMV.

The girl did not have her own room and slept with her foster parents in the same bed. They both went around the house naked because they defined themselves as naturists and they proposed to have sex and to let him take intimate photos in which the young woman appeared naked.

Given the refusal of the adolescent, they took her mobile phone without her permission and sent images in which she appeared naked, according to the complaint of the Valencia Prosecutor's Office.

Likewise, they bought her sensual lingerie and went with her to a hotel with a jacuzzi to photograph her.

The disturbing sexual practices did not end there. On another occasion, according to the accusation, they took her to the beach at night and forced her to witness how the ex-councillor's wife had sex with three unknown people.

While this sexual encounter was taking place, the former councilor spoke to him, telling him that this was what he should do, as well as asking him if he wanted to have sex with him at that moment.

The convicted couple forbade the victim to shave herself and hid the blades from her so that she had no other choice and asked for their help. Regarding touching, it occurred on the breasts with the excuse of applying a topical medication and in the vagina by inserting fingers.

Political life

Joan and Carmen have always been closely linked to politics. He was a councilor for Compromís in the municipality of Alfafar, where they reside, until the 2019 elections, and his wife has been linked to the coalition for years.

The man is well known in the municipality of Alfafar for his involvement with the Compromís project, as well as presiding over one of the best-known associations in the town, the Ateneu Popular del Parc.

Joan starred in a controversy in 2013, when he asked to remove the PP from the institutions “with a shotgun”. He commented on it through his Facebook wall and later reported that he had received death threats.

The former councilor was a pensioner. Due to the disability he suffered, he could not dedicate himself fully to his job and he got into politics.

In the general elections of 2008 he was a candidate for the Senate with the coalition for the Valencian Republic, formed by the Valencian State together with the Valencian Nationalist Left and the Valencian Republic-Partit Valencianista Europeu.

In 2015, he repeated as head of the list with Compromís for Alfafar, a candidacy that obtained two councilors. It was the first time that the consistory obtained representatives of a nationalist party. The events for which he has been convicted occurred while he was a councilor in this Valencian town hall.

Joan shared her life with Carmen and they formed a family with the arrival of the teenager at their home. They had been married for 7 years and in their publications they were smiling and happy. Carmen, a native of Alfafar, studied Technical Engineering in Computer Science at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and, like the former councilor, was very committed to her political ideas.

pornographic material

When the minor reported the facts, the couple's home was entered and searched, where photos of the victim and images of other nude minors were seized.

In July 2019, the Court of Instruction 1 of Catarroja decreed the entry into provisional prison, communicated and without bail of the former councilor of Compromís in the Alfafar City Council, while the magistrate released his wife provisionally with precautionary measures. In addition, he issued a restraining order and the prohibition to communicate with the victim by any means.

One of the documents found among the seized digital files was a submission contract between the couple that included a section called 'The ten laws of a slave'.

The second point of the text said the following. “I declare my willingness to be used to give birth, raise and educate future slaves and sexual slaves, remaining available for when my Owner decides on this matter”. The convicts affirmed in the trial that it was “pure literature”.

As clarified by the Ministry of Equality and Inclusive Policies at that time, the couple accused of sexual abuse did not appear in any registry of foster families, which indicates that they had some kind of relationship with the biological parents of the minor.. The person in charge of the ministry was the former vice president Mónica Oltra.

For its part, Compromís issued a statement to express “the most absolute condemnation” for the crimes committed by the exedil and his partner, and qualified that both were no longer affiliated with any organization belonging to the coalition.

However, in the 2019 municipal elections, shortly before the arrests, the defendant was number two on Alfafar's list and his wife was number three.. The party only obtained one councilor, so both were left out of the corporation.

The lawyer for the private prosecution explained after the trial that the amount of pornographic material found in the home of the defendants “was very high.”. The couple claimed at trial that it was related to the documentation and preparation of a journalistic report on child pornography.