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Abused wife faces jail for not letting dad visit child

Steve Tallantyre
Steve Tallantyre - [email protected]
Abused wife faces jail for not letting dad visit child
Photo of domestic violence: Shutterstock"

A Spanish woman has been ordered to serve a six-month prison sentence after she refused to allow her former husband, who was jailed for 21 months for domestic abuse, to visit their daughter.

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María Salmerón, a 50-year-old nursing assistant in Seville, hit the headlines in 2011 when it was revealed that she had lost custody of her daughter, Miriam, in 2009 for failure to comply with court orders which gave her former husband visitation rights.

The man, known as A.R.D., had served 21 months in prison for domestic violence against Salmerón who said, "The girl didn't want to be with her father and I wasn't going to let her be under the same roof as an abuser."

A magistrate sentenced Salmerón to two years in prison for disobeying court orders and gave custody of the girl to the father, according to regional online daily Andaluces.es.

The sentence was reduced to 6 months on appeal and a high-profile court battle resulted in Salmerón regaining custody of the girl, who is now 14.

In response, her husband filed a number of complaints and on September 29th this year she was ordered by the public prosecutor to hand herself in to prison authorities to complete her sentence.

Salmerón has appealed to the prosecutor, asking for the sentence to be dropped but says that if she loses, "I will lose my job, I won't be able to pay my mortgage and my daughter will have to go and live with an abuser because he has asked to have custody again."

"In Spain there is no justice. If I didn't let my daughter be visited by her father it's because I didn't want to go against her wishes," she added.

A court is now considering Salmerón's appeal.

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