Spain: 15 months in prison for sexual assault during a reality TV show

A participant in the Spanish version of the reality show “Big Brother” has been sentenced to fifteen months in prison for sexually assaulting another candidate in 2017, Spanish justice announced in a press release on Monday.

The Madrid court ruling in this case also banned him from approaching or contacting the victim for four years and also ordered him to pay 6,000 euros for “moral damage”.

According to the press release, the show’s producers will have to pay the victim the same amount. The prosecution had requested a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence.

The scene took place in 2017 during the filming of “Gran Hermano” (Big Brother in Spanish), a program broadcast by Telecinco, the most watched channel in Spain.

This show consists of locking a group of people in a house and filming them continuously, with viewers having to eliminate the candidates one by one in succession.

According to the judge who ruled the case, the convicted man, who started an emotional relationship with the victim during the program, “took off his pants while they were in the same bed before he began to perform movements of a sexual nature.”

But the victim was “under the influence of alcohol” and told him “I can’t” in a weak voice, the justice press release continues.

“The mouvements of the condamné ont continué durant more than a few minutes, just as the victim (…) montre qu’elle était totalement inerte, ce qui provoqua l’intervention d’un of the membres of the programme,” an encore indication Justice.

The relationship broke out two years after the shooting, in 2019, when the press revealed that the young woman had been asked to comment, the next day, on the scene in front of the camera in the so-called “confession” room.

A video of this interrogation, revealed by online media, showed her tearfully pleading to stop broadcasting the images. The contestant was kicked off the show.