'Won't pay' sex clients guilty of rape
Man who 'did a runner' gets four years
03 March, 15:08
(ANSA) - Rome, March 3 - Clients who don't pay prostitutes
are guilty of rape, Italy's highest court ruled Wednesday.The Cassation Court, Italy's highest appeals court whose sentences set legal precedents, upheld a four-year rape conviction against a Ligurian man who 'did a runner' from a hotel without paying for his sex bout.
"There is no doubt," the supreme court justices said, "that the man abused the women and was aware of it".
It was not consensual sex, the judges said, because the sex act was "only committed in light of the fee due".
Diego S., 50, compounded his crime by getting the hotel to say he hadn't been there, the court said.
He was ordered to pay Laura S. 2,000 euros as provisional compensation with further damages to be established by a civil court.
Diego S. was banned for life from any watchdog agencies and for five years from any other public position.
The court did not say what his occupation was.
Prostitution is not illegal in Italy but exploiting it is.
