The Provincial Court of Santa Cruz de Tenerife has ratified the sentence of six months in prison and the obligation to return 520 euros plus interest to a man who promised to put up a door, received that amount in advance and then did not do any work.
The facts date back to the month of May 2018 when the defendant agreed with the complainant to carry out a carpentry work that consisted of placing a door at the latter’s home in Las Caletillas, in the municipality of Candelaria.
The budget amounted to 795 euros of which he received 520, according to the Chamber, “knowing that he would not carry out the work, as it finally happened.”
The reality is that neither the complainant ever recovered the money advanced nor did he manage to get the door installed, so he finally went to court to request the compensation that could correspond to him.
After the ruling issued in the first instance, the defendant filed an appeal before the Court in which he claimed that there was no evidence that he had committed any crime, which violated the constitutional right to the presumption of innocence.
The Provincial Court, however, does not share this argument and believes that the evidence produced during the trial was already analyzed and weighed in the first instance.
Specifically, the statements of the person who made the order and paid the advance are considered valid and which were ratified by his son who assures that he saw how the defendant went to his house to measure, asked for part of the money for the work, but a Once they handed it over, “we never heard from him again, because he disappeared,” he said.
The truth is that not even the defendant came to deny these statements and in fact he did not even appear at the trial, limiting himself to maintaining through an appeal that he only acted as an intermediary for who was his partner at the time.
He held the latter responsible for having arranged the work, although that statement was not corroborated in any way, rather the opposite.
The witnesses asserted that the deal was made with him and that he was also the person to whom they delivered the money, as would be proven by various emails exchanged between the two and the content of an invoice reflecting the agreed budget.
Therefore, according to the Court, “the denounced mistake is not appreciated, since the Court of Instance had sufficient evidence, validly obtained and practiced, while the defendant only presents partial and interested evaluations.
However, the door is now open for the convicted person to be able to present another appeal this time before the Supreme Court.
