Not criminal doesn’t mean legal. I’m not a lawyer and not versed in Italian law at all, but in general and especially in continental Europe you have quite a bit of things that aren’t allowed but don’t carry a punishment. To take a less loaded example: Here, in Germany, if you have your rowing boat at an isolated lake and I decide to borrow it without your permission, I would be breaking the law, but I would not be committing a crime. It’s not theft because I wouldn’t have any option to keep the boat and apart from that there’s no crime to be considered.
In practice that means I wouldn’t need to fear arrest, but you could still sue me for damages/rent for the boat and you very much could take measures to remove me from the boat if I were on it and refused to return it after being asked to do so.
Please don’t do it without asking an actual lawyer first, but my guess is that in case of groping in Italy and after exhausting the nice methods like of simply removing the hand until second three, you could probably resort to punching in the face in second five and be covered under self-defense.
Not criminal doesn’t mean legal. I’m not a lawyer and not versed in Italian law at all, but in general and especially in continental Europe you have quite a bit of things that aren’t allowed but don’t carry a punishment. To take a less loaded example: Here, in Germany, if you have your rowing boat at an isolated lake and I decide to borrow it without your permission, I would be breaking the law, but I would not be committing a crime. It’s not theft because I wouldn’t have any option to keep the boat and apart from that there’s no crime to be considered.
In practice that means I wouldn’t need to fear arrest, but you could still sue me for damages/rent for the boat and you very much could take measures to remove me from the boat if I were on it and refused to return it after being asked to do so.
Please don’t do it without asking an actual lawyer first, but my guess is that in case of groping in Italy and after exhausting the nice methods like of simply removing the hand until second three, you could probably resort to punching in the face in second five and be covered under self-defense.