The Prosecutor’s Office of Andorra claims four months of conditional arrest by a man accused of sexually harassing a cleaning worker his, as well as the prohibition of no contact with the victim for four years and this same period of suspension of the sentence, considering a minor crime of harassment proven. The prosecution has agreed to the request of the prosecutor’s office, while the defense is asking for acquittal, as stated in the trial held today by the Court of Courts
The events date back to the end of February 2021 a Escaldes-Engordany. The indictment maintains that the man, 53 years old at the time of the events i head of a real estate companyhe would have addressed the temporary worker, of Argentine nationality and little more than twice 20 yearswith expressions such as “you’re a very pretty person” or asking her “How do you see me as a man?”while putting his hand on her hip and back.
The first episode would have occurred in the same company officesspecifically when the employee was cleaning her superior’s office. A few weeks later, after the temporary worker had taken leave due to covid-19, the girl I had to go and clean a tourist apartment -very close to the company’s headquarters- and the man also went there to review the tasks. There, recounts the accusation, the no one in the company would have spoken similar words to him and touched the same parts of his body that in the first scenario, in addition to asking him to bend down to clean a stain from the floor right in front of the accused, and to enter the shower, where she would have been completely cornered.
The girl, however, imagining the subordinate’s intentions, said that she would not, and then the accused would have interpreted that the girl would feel uncomfortable saying to him: “I’m sorry if I violated you”. The scene would have lasted a few minutes and then both returned to the office. The worker never worked with the company again and he left the country in subsequent weeks. Before, however, I would have informed other subordinates, with hurt, worried, and even cryingof the situation he experienced, and also addressed the Equality Service to report the case and receive advice.
The Fiscal Ministry points out that, in the different statements that the girl gave to the police and the victim care service, the story is solid and coherent. He considers the parts caressing the victim to have one sufficient sexual connotationand that combined with the spoken expressions created a hostile and humiliating environment for the girl, because normal circumstances were exceeded of a relationship between worker and employee. He also sees as aggravating the elements of physical superiority, the age difference as well as professional ancestry.
For his part, the accused acknowledged that, seen in perspective, the words he uttered to the worker were not appropriate, but he attributed it to a linguistic and cultural issue. In this sense, he assured that he has always been related only to Catalan and that, for him, the Spanish is a foreign language as French can be. Despite admitting that he has an advanced command of the language, he pointed out that he does not speak it with the same dissimulation as Catalan. Added to this circumstance was the fact that the Spanish of the alleged victim, of South American origin, was not standard, and that this would supposedly have generated a wrong interpretation on his part. Instead, he denied that he had put his hand on the woman’s hip or back.
In any case, he pointed out that there was no double intention with those words and that with the other workers of the company as well he was usually very affable. This end, however, was strongly qualified by the same subordinates who testified as witnesses, making it clear that they were expressions that he said only sporadically.
The man’s defense relied on the fact that the girl did not appear to testify to allege that there is not enough evidence to charge himand added that the words he said to her have no physical background. He also pointed out that in the victim’s statements there were contradictions about the exact areas where the touching would have taken place.
