“I got blocked, I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t understand it, I was afraid and had 1,000 things in my head.” This is how journalist Mar B. expressed herself during her statement in the trial against her former boss, Saül Gordillo, accused of touching her without consent during the company dinner. Minutes before, in an unusual event, the complainant wanted to show her face upon entering the City of Justice. “Shame has to change sides,” he told the press.
The victims’ statements to the press before the trial are exceptional, but Mar B. has decided to speak so, in his words, “that the truth wins” and criticize the “repeated attempts” to get him to withdraw the complaint against him. former director of Catalunya Ràdio and the Catalan News Agency (ACN). Gordillo faces a request for a fine of 9,000 euros from the Prosecutor’s Office and four years in prison from the private prosecution.
Inside the courtroom, Mar B.’s description of the events has been typical of many sexual violence trials, in which the victims describe shame, modesty and a sometimes distorted memory of the events, a circumstance that He has also taken advantage of Gordillo’s defense to try to contradict the young woman and undermine her credibility.
Mar B. has described that, inside the Apolo nightclub, he put his hand behind the editor’s back and lowered it to the buttock area, then put his left hand under the leg of his pants and performed another touching without consent.
The complainant testified through tears in some sections of the interrogation. Magistrate María del Pilar Calvo and prosecutor Pilar Izaguirre have indicated to him on several occasions that he could explain himself calmly, stopping and drinking water if necessary.
The interrogation increased in tone when it was the turn of Gordillo’s defense, carried out by the lawyer Carles Monguilod. Gordillo alleges that they were consensual touching, the result of a previous leak between the two, and believes that this is demonstrated by the videos from the nightclub’s security cameras, which will be viewed at the trial.
The defense’s repeated attempts to confront the complainant’s statement with the videos have caused several reproaches from the magistrate to Monguilod, whom she has even criticized for wanting to subject Mar B. to “a triple trial,” who has finished his sentence. interrogation crying. The lawyer has considered that the magistrate’s cuts violated his right of defense.
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