Another reason to emigrate to Spain

I’m doing some research for my Spanish oral exam tomorrow, and was pleasantly astounded to come across the headline ‘Man condemned to 27 years imprisonment for locking his wife and children in apartment for two days‘. The man locked them in their home while he went to work, taking away the woman’s mobile so she couldn’t contact anyone. Luckily, some family friends came to the flat, she was able to tell them what happened and they persuaded the man to come home and release her and their three children.

When he did so, he threatened to kill her, she locked herself in a room and he proceeded to dangle one of their children over the balcony by his ankles, saying he’d drop him if she didn’t come out. The police arrived in time to arrest him, and he has been sentenced to five years for each of the four cases of illegal detention, two years for each of the three cases of threatening behaviour and another year for mistreatment: 27 years in all. He is also banned from coming within 1km of his family for the next 40 years.

Can you imagine anything even near that kind of length of sentence being meted out in this country, if he was found guilty of anything at all?!