The Investigative Court number 4 of Barakaldo has prosecuted a fairgrounder for the alleged commission of a continuous crime of sexual assault and, likewise, another continuous crime of assault on minors under 16 years of age. The alleged aggressor is accused of having touched 22 girls, all of them except one who was a minor, while supposedly securing the restraint mechanism of an attraction at the Gallarta festivities.

The events occurred last June, during the festivities of this Vizcaya neighborhood belonging to the municipality of Abanto (Bizkaia). The defendant worked there, as a fair trader, during the second and third week of June. The 26-year-old man was, in theory, in charge of managing tickets and security at the attraction, known as ‘the grasshopper’, as well as supervising security.

This man, however, would have taken advantage of that position to touch 22 girls when they entered the attraction and, supposedly, was checking the security closure. The victims took the step of filing the corresponding complaints during the celebration of the holidays and police officers arrested the alleged aggressor, while closing the attraction.

As explained by the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country, the head of the court has issued the order with which the investigation ends, transforms the preliminary proceedings into an abbreviated procedure and gives processing to the Prosecutor’s Office and the accusing parties, if any, so that within a period of 10 days they request the opening of the oral trial by formulating their indictment or the dismissal of the case or, exceptionally, the carrying out of complementary proceedings.

The judge considers that “from the procedures carried out during the investigation it is indicative that between June 16 and 18 of this year, on the occasion of the Gallarta festivities, the person under investigation, taking advantage of the fact that he had to install the closing mechanism of an attraction of fair, repeatedly touched 22 girls in the genital area without consent, all but one of whom were minors.

The alleged perpetrator of these events has been in provisional prison since June 19, 2023.