Violent partner away from home even though the victim assures that he has changed

The priority is to defend women who suffer violence. And they must be protected even against their will. On the basis of this principle, the Cassazione upheld the appeal by the public prosecutor against the revocation of the precautionary measures imposed, for the crime of ill-treatment in the family and injuries aggravated by the use of a weapon (a knife), against the cohabiting partner. In a first order, the Court had set a number of restrictions for the suspect: the obligation to report to the police, to leave the family home and the prohibition to approach or communicate with the offended person.

Precautionary demands justified by the serious indications of guilt against him for all the crimes charged. Charges based precisely on the complaint made by the victim, the mother of a baby girl only a few months old, on her accounts of a year of violence, on those of her sister, as well as on the injuries found. Statements that the Court had considered reliable, but then - in a contradictory manner in the Prosecutor's opinion - revoked the precautionary measures, considering the woman's statements describing a new man to be equally reliable.

"The offended person," reads the judgment, "had reported that he had wanted to return to live with his partner, who had shown that he had changed and 'had become aware of the conduct complained of': so that the conflict between the parties that had led to the commission of the offences in question could be considered to have ceased". Hence the backtracking on the restrictions by the Court, which had trusted in the return between the two to 'full normality'.

However, the Supreme Court agreed with the prosecutor's argument that it was not possible to wipe out a circumstantial picture of the woman's total subjection to her partner, whom she described as jealous to the point of verbally abusing her and beating her, causing her injuries that she had repeatedly avoided having reported for fear of retaliation.

Violence, which took place despite the presence of the youngest daughter, culminating in an assault in the street, where she had been beaten and wounded in the hand with a knife. Tales that had already led the Court to consider a first recantation as not credible and then, 'illogically', to take the second one at face value. The Court had believed in the reconciliation and the end of the conflict, considering "the risk that the suspect would return to commit crimes of the same nature no longer present". This was even in the face of the plaintiff's willingness to reconciliate his partner at home, downplaying the significance of the previous accusations and describing a completely peaceful situation.