Court acquits man of assault because woman had time to flee

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 17 - An appeals court in Milan has acquitted a former trade unionist of sexual assault on the grounds that his alleged victim, a hostess, had an estimated 20 to 30 seconds to react and could have escaped the alleged violence, according to the motivation of the sentence published on Tuesday.
    The motivation said that "the defendant did not carry out any form of violence" that could put the alleged victim in a "situation where it was absolutely impossible to avoid the conduct" and that she had a window of "20-30 seconds" that would have "enabled her to escape".
    The alleged victim, an air hostess, had contacted the unionist at Milan's Malpensa airport in 2018 over a trade-union dispute.
    On June 24, the Milan appeals court cleared the former trade unionist of sexual assault, upholding a first-instance verdict, stating that the hostess took too long to react to his alleged assault.
    The man, former CISL official Raffaele Meola, was first cleared of the alleged assault in 2020.
    A women's group assisting the alleged victim called the sentence a "disgrace that takes us back 30 years" and said they would appeal to the supreme Court of Cassation. (ANSA).