Malaga trial against priest accused of sexually assaulting four women starts with ex-partner's testimony

Sexual abuse

Father Fran's former girlfriend appeared before the court on Monday, where she described the system the defendant had used to classify the files as that of a "psycopath"

Irene Quirante

The trial against Father Fran, accused of four counts of sexual assault, disclosure of secrets and bodily harm, began on Monday at the provincial court of Malaga.

His former partner was the first to testify. She appeared before the court behind a screen to avoid eye contact with the defendant. She explained how she had discovered the audiovisual files of the alleged abuse.

In addition, she denounced the continuous lack of response from the Church when she tried to report the incidents.

She accidentally discovered the files around Christmas 2022, while at the defendant's home in Melilla, where she practically lived. She wanted to watch a film or a series, but when she connected a portable hard drive to the television, a different image appeared. She recognised Father Fran who was sexually abusing a victim she knew. "A picture of a girl I know immediately popped up," she stated.

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  Irene Quirante

This incident horrified her, so she went home. The next day, she returned to Father Fran's home to examine the device. She took it home to plug it into a computer and see if there were more files.

Through tears, she said: "That's when I saw all the folders, categorised like those of a psychopath's, with the victims' names."

The witness stated that she clearly remembered another victim because she appeared "completely dead" while he "was raping her". She then made a backup copy of all the content on her own computer before returning the device to its place so that the defendant wouldn't become suspicious.

After the discovery, she told a mutual acquaintance, who then told a priest he knew. She also told another priest at Father Fran's church.

In early January 2023, when the defendant returned to Melilla, they confronted him and asked him to show them the hard drive, but his computer was broken, so they went to the parish. The witness stated that the other priest "turned white" and "couldn't believe" the images.

Prior to this revelation, Father Fran had asked her not to share the contents, threatening to "ruin her" and take his own life.

"He kept asking me what I was accusing him of, that I didn't know what I was doing, that I was going to ruin him, that I either helped him or he would kill himself," she said in the court.

During that meeting at the church, the suspect claimed that "the Church was aware of all this, that they had forgiven him and that the girls (the victims) had too".

He then asked the other priest and his partner to leave him alone for five minutes to pray, a moment which, according to the witness, he used to delete the files from the original hard drive.

The Church chooses silence

According to the witness's testimony, the vicar of the diocese, two days after the incident, transferred Father Fran from Melilla to Malaga, justifying the move on the grounds of "health issues". He first sent him to a retreat and later assigned him to the parishes of El Burgo and Yunquera, without any official from the diocese intervening in the process or notifying the police of its details.

Father Fran's former partner tried to formally report the incident to religious authorities, attempting to do so in person, by phone and by mail, without success. After much persistence, she was finally able to meet with the vicar, who reacted with disbelief.

"I told him, he got angry, slammed his fist on the table," she said. The vicar reportedly said that "it was impossible that he had done that".

Her efforts to contact the then Bishop of Malaga were equally unsuccessful, despite her repeated requests for a meeting. "I asked for a meeting and he replied that he was very busy. I felt abandoned by the Church, I felt empty. I even went into the bishop's office, but he refused to see me. They shut the door on me. They completely ignored me," she said.

The lack of response from the Church led her to a state of utter despair. "I wanted to end it all, I didn't want to suffer anymore," she stated.

At one point, a police officer found her in a state of anxiety and distress at the beach and asked about her well-being. Despite her fear, she decided to tell him what she had discovered months earlier.

"I needed to report it," she said. The deputy inspector requested the presence of a plainclothes officer, who arrived at the scene and later went to the witness's home to make an initial copy of the files onto a USB drive. Days later, the judicial police proceeded with the final seizure of the computer, initiating the criminal investigation that led to the opening of this trial.

72-year prison sentence

The prosecutor is requesting a 72-year prison sentence and 300,000 euros in compensation for each of the four alleged victims. Father Fran has been in pretrial detention since September 2023.

According to the prosecutor, the priest followed the same strategy for years. He took advantage of the trust the victims had in him to drug and assault them.

The public prosecutor names the Diocese of Malaga as a secondary civilly liable party.