ISSUE NO. 1665
1 - 7 June 2017
MALLORCA
YOUR PAPER, YOUR VOICE, YOUR OPINION
X-Factor Fugitive child abuser jailed By Matthew Elliott A sadistic paedophile who performed on the X-Factor in Britain while on the run from Spanish police had his 23-year sentence confirmed by a Mallorca court. Manuel Pons Sanchez, 46, was found guilty of raping and abusing his daughter. She was aged just six w hen t h e f o u r- y e a r ca mpaign of terror began. Sanchez, who worked as a hospital porter in Merseyside while a fugitive, was caged last August for the horrific crimes on his home island of Menorca. He b e a t a n d r a p e d N a talia, now aged 22, tying her to a bed and leaving her suffering from crippling anxiety. Shockingly she was also raped b y h e r u n c l e a n d mother’s boyfriend as well as her singer father. Sanchez made it to the Boot Camp stage of the popular reality show.
Judge Simon Cowell told him “we like you” after his 2009 audition. S a n ch ez ev en p laye d Fawlty Towers character Manuel in a comedy sketch with Holly Willoughby on spin-off show the Xtra Factor. Natalia’s mother reported his crimes to Spanish police in 2007, three years after he fled to Liverpool. But it wasn’t until 2016, after over a decade living in Britain, that the law caught up with Sanchez when he applied for a British passport. Defence lawyers tried to reduce the sentence, one of the longest ever dished out on the Balearic Islands, be-
MANUEL PONS SANCHEZ: A 23-year sentence.
cause of the time it took to ge t the c a s e to tria l. O n Tue s da y Supre me C ourt judge s in Pa lma re je c te d the a ppe a l a fte r he a ring harrowing testimony from his traumatised victim.
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Love affair over? SUPERMODEL Claudia Schiffer is selling her Mallorca home. The huge estate in Andratx’s Camp de Mar is expected to fetch €4-5 million. When complete the sale could bring an end to a love affair the iconic German model began with Mallorca when she was still a child. She has since owned two properties on the island. It is no surprise that Schiffer is selling the sprawling 500,000 hectare family estate on the edge of the Mediterranean. Last year she and British film producer husband Matthew Vaughan were involved in a bizarre legal spat with next door neighbour, former Formula One chief Willi Weber. Weber accused the couple of chopping down two glorious pine trees on his side of the fence to improve their sea view. He demanded €30,000 compensation and threatened to “plant so many trees they could only smell the sea” before the case was settled out of court. Claudia Schiffer.