Lina Balbuena

Lina Balbuena, a 48-year old mother of four, was murdered on February 9th this year by her ex-partner. On January 21st she applied for a restraining order against her ex, identified only as “Augustine”, which was denied. The judge in a specialist gender violence court in Benalmadena, Spain, ruled in line with the VioGén algorithm that she faced only medium risk.

Lina intended to change the locks in her home so Augustine could not enter, however at around 5am on February 9th he did so. Their 11-year-old son walked in and found Augustine strangling Lina, having punched and stabbed her, and attempted to hang her from the ceiling – believed to be intended to make her death look like a suicide. The boy tried to get between his parents to protect Lina, and Augustine hit him as well, leaving him with cuts and bruises. Augustine then set the house on fire – all the children, aged 19, 11, 9 and 7 and their grandmother escaped, along with Augustine.

At 5.25am Augustine called the police to report the fire, but did not mention that his family lived there or that anyone was inside. When police arrived he told them that the fire was accidental – his 11-year-old son said “Dad, that’s not true – you killed mum” and informed police she was still inside.

Augustine’s lawyer requested an examination to determine whether he suffers from a disorder that affects his intellectual capacities – despite the fact he was able to attempt to stage the scene as a suicide, try to cover up the crime with a fire, and to lie to police about what happened.

This was an escalation of previous abuse. On January 20th Augustine attacked Lina, taking her phone and raising his fist towards her, threatening to hit her. Lina told police that on previous occasions he had hit her. The VioGén algorithm assessed her as being at “medium” risk, as opposed to “low”, “high” or “extreme.” She and the prosecution applied for a restraining order, but this was rejected by a judge.

A 2014 study found that officers accepted VioGén’s evaluation of the likelihood of repeated abuse 95% of the time – despite the fact that the head of the National Police’s family and women’s unit in Malaga, Chief Inspector Isabel Espejo, would only say that the algorithm’s calculation of risk is “usually adequate”.