Rubén Castro, acquitted of breaking a restraining order for his ex-partner

The Criminal Court number 11 of Seville has acquitted the footballer Rubén Castro of the crime of breaking the precautionary measure of which the Prosecutor's Office accused him and the private prosecution for allegedly breaching the prohibition to communicate and approach within 300 meters of his ex-partner.

The judgment considers that there is not sufficient evidence of prosecution to undermine the principle of presumption of innocence “And to achieve with full conviction an active and fraudulent conduct of the defendant tending to breach the measure that weighed on him”, reported this Tuesday the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia.

The judge explains that in the oral hearing held against the footballer in May 2017 after the complaint of mistreatment presented by his ex-girlfriend, a witness proposed by the athlete's defense related, without specifying the year, an event that occurred around 1.30 or 2.00 hours in the summer season.

The witness did not specify the year and indicated that the incident occurred in a beach area, specifically in a reserved area to which the ex-partner wanted to access “to ask for forgiveness” from the accused.

After that trial for mistreatment, in which the footballer was acquitted, The Prosecutor's Office urged to investigate the alleged commission of a crime of violation of the restraining order issued in 2013 and once the testimony of the witness and friend of Rubén Castro was known.

In the oral hearing for this new case, the magistrate concludes that “absolutely each and every one of the testimonies is partial, barely objective and impregnated with an evident subjective charge that leads the court to notably distrust its content.”

In this way, the version of the accused and the friend who appeared as a witness “has nothing to do” with what was stated by his ex-girlfriend and the witness proposed by her who accompanied him when the events would have occurred, since “these are manifestly contradictory versions on the joint presence of the accused ”.

In the judgment of the magistrate, and by way of conclusion, the testimony offered by the witness in the trial of May 2017 “does not describe any action” of the defendant “aimed at allowing access that he reveals to his friend, this testimony generating a real doubt and reasonable on the terms in which the attempt “of the woman” to apologize “to the person under investigation ended.

The judge adds that, from the probative procedural perspective, “what we find” in the testimony of this witness “is an indication or suspicion of an encounter provoked” by the defendant's ex-partner and that he accepts.

The magistrate points out that there is not “sufficient evidence of the charge to distort the principle of presumption of innocence and to achieve with full conviction an active and malicious conduct of the accused tending to breach the measure that weighed on him.”