Simon Hunter
POLICE in Madrid arrested a man on Tuesday after he groped a female TV reporter while she was live on air. The bizarre scene played out on a morning show called En Boca de Todos (On Everyone’s Lips), on TV network Cuatro.
Isabel Balado was reporting on an armed robbery from central Madrid, when a tall man wearing sunglasses approached her from behind and touched her backside before asking: “Which channel are you from?”
Balado nervously laughed as she tried to explain to the man that she was broadcasting live, also apologising to the presenter with whom she was speaking, Nacho Abad.
The presenter, however, quickly interjected to ask: “Did he just touch your butt?”
“Yes,” she replied with a sigh, looking increasingly uncomfortable.
Abad then requested that the man be put on camera, saying: “Put this stupid guy on, please.”
An exchange then followed between the two, with Balado telling the assailant that he should not have touched her, and the man denying that he had done so.
As he left the scene, he then condescendingly patted her on her hair with one of his hands.
“Is this guy a moron?” Abad was heard to ask as the aggressor left the scene.
The program returned to the scene later with Balado, who informed the studio that the man was still there and ‘bumping into any girl that he can find’.
The man then returned to the reporter and said: “I heard what you said before, tell the truth.”
At the Cuatro studios, meanwhile, the team had already contacted the police, who arrived in a matter of minutes and arrested him.
The police will now analyse the footage and take a statement from both the suspect and the reporter.
The man could face charges for sexual assault.
“That character is now under arrest,” wrote another one of the show’s presenters, Diego Losada, after the incident. “The full force of the law should fall on him, and everyone should know that behaviour like that cannot go unpunished. What a great professional Isa Balado is. All of my support to my colleague.”
Read more:
- Policeman in Spain reports woman for ‘non-consensual kiss’
- Prosecutors at Spain’s national High Court formalise criminal case against Luis Rubiales over unsolicited kiss
- Alleged sexual assault by German tourists in Spain’s Balearic Islands was recorded on cellphone
