A true tale from Los Gallardos, which happened a fortnight ago. The names have been changed for my own protection, but all involved are local lads.
A certain fellow, nice but dim is how even his own blessed mother would describe him, a keen amateur footballer, got into a bit of rough and tumble on the field at a recent game up at Los Gallardos football field. He accused his opponent team -captained by his cousin, with whom he has “bad blood” according to some- of tripping him up on purpose, but the ref only saw the aftermath and gave him a yellow card.
Off he stormed, in a temper, and abandoned the game to go home. Home in this case being down the local bar with a few mates.
Later that night, after a few drinks, he rang up the cousin shouting abuse at him down the phone and accusing him of playing dirty. What was actually said nobody knows, but later that night the cousin rang up the Guardia and denounced him, saying that our lad had made threats about roughing up his ex-girlfriend (some relation of the cousin – what, I don’t know, sister I think) “for revenge”. The kid is well known for drunkenly shouting abuse down the phone, but has never, I am assured, so much as even pushed another living human being (off the football field, of course).
This lead to our hero (in the Falstaffian tradition, to be sure) being “picked up”, as I think the expression is, by the local Guardia patrol from a local bar later that night and spending the night cooling his heels in the local nick. An accusation of domestic abuse leads to an automatic arrest in Spain until a trial can be arranged.
The next morning, sweaty and unshaven, he was up in front of the local beak in Vera. The ex-girlfriend had told the man from the local court that she “didn’t want to get involved and let the two primos sort it out, nothing to do with me” and refused to testify. Everyone who has told me this story swears blind that the relationship had always been on-off, they never lived together and it had ended quite some time previously in a fairly amicable manner.
Of course, since the ex-girlfriend refused to testify, and a blood relation of the woman involved (the primo) had denounced him for threatened domestic abuse, he was given a caution, a fine and a three month restraining order against the ex. He cannot go within 50m of her without being arrested, despite the fact that she never complained, asked for the order and told the court official that “it was a childish fight between two primos who never got on.
Fair enough, even though Los Gallardos is a small place. Sadly, he lives in the apartment next to her.
The story goes that the cops who dropped him off realised that he lived next door to her, and informed him that if he returned home he would be automatically arrested. They waited for him to grab a few things then dropped him off at his mothers, warning him that they would drop by occasionally and if they saw any lights on at his place, he’d go to jail for the reminder of the three months the restraining order had to run.
He’s now living at his Mothers, and is not a happy bunny.
Meanwhile, the ex-mayor of El Ejido who stole 200 million euros is still walking about a free man, enjoying the many local decent restaurants and, I am told, recently enjoyed a short holiday “somewhere nice”.
Doesn’t seem fair really, does it?