Outrage in Italy as judge rules groping for 'a few seconds' not a crime
An Italian court cleared a janitor who admitted he groped a schoolgirl on the grounds that it only lasted between "five and ten seconds"
The judge ruled that groping that lasts less than 10 seconds isn't criminal after a 17-year-old student at a school in Rome reported being assaulted by the caretaker as she walked up a staircase to class in April 2022.
She said her trousers had fallen down from her waist and as she was pulling them up she felt hands on her buttocks before the man grabbed her underwear, Italian media reported.
When she turned around the caretaker reportedly brushed off what he'd done, saying: “Love, you know I was joking."
The janitor, 66, went on trial on charges of sexual assault, with prosecutors seeking a three-year jail term if he was convicted. Avola confessed to groping the student but insisted it was a "joke".
According to court documents, afterwards he pleaded with the girl to let it pass, telling her: "You will ruin my life, I didn't do anything to you."
READ ALSO: Almost half of Italian women report suffering sexual harassment
The judge said that the grope lasted “between five and 10 seconds” and was therefore too fleeting to be considered a crime.
The verdict triggered an online protest, with thousands of social media users posting videos of themselves touching intimate body parts alongside the hashtags “palpata breve” (brief grope) and “10 secondi” (10 seconds).
The trend was started by White Lotus actor Paolo Camilli and picked up by Italy’s best-known social media influencer, Chiara Ferragni.
Influencer Francesco Cicconetti wrote on TikTok: “Who decides that 10 seconds is not a long time? Who times the seconds while you’re being harassed?”
Italian judges have been criticised in the past for similar rulings. In 2017, a judge cleared two men of rape because he said the victim looked "too masculine" to be sexually attractive.
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The judge ruled that groping that lasts less than 10 seconds isn't criminal after a 17-year-old student at a school in Rome reported being assaulted by the caretaker as she walked up a staircase to class in April 2022.
She said her trousers had fallen down from her waist and as she was pulling them up she felt hands on her buttocks before the man grabbed her underwear, Italian media reported.
When she turned around the caretaker reportedly brushed off what he'd done, saying: “Love, you know I was joking."
The janitor, 66, went on trial on charges of sexual assault, with prosecutors seeking a three-year jail term if he was convicted. Avola confessed to groping the student but insisted it was a "joke".
According to court documents, afterwards he pleaded with the girl to let it pass, telling her: "You will ruin my life, I didn't do anything to you."
READ ALSO: Almost half of Italian women report suffering sexual harassment
The judge said that the grope lasted “between five and 10 seconds” and was therefore too fleeting to be considered a crime.
The verdict triggered an online protest, with thousands of social media users posting videos of themselves touching intimate body parts alongside the hashtags “palpata breve” (brief grope) and “10 secondi” (10 seconds).
The trend was started by White Lotus actor Paolo Camilli and picked up by Italy’s best-known social media influencer, Chiara Ferragni.
Influencer Francesco Cicconetti wrote on TikTok: “Who decides that 10 seconds is not a long time? Who times the seconds while you’re being harassed?”
Italian judges have been criticised in the past for similar rulings. In 2017, a judge cleared two men of rape because he said the victim looked "too masculine" to be sexually attractive.
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