Victim of police officer convicted of assault in Granada: "The greatest ordeal of my life began"
Maribel, a 53-year-old psychologist, recounts how her ex-husband, a local police sub-inspector, harassed her for years using technological means after their divorce. The officer was imprisoned in July after being sentenced to 29 months.
Local police sub-inspector imprisoned after years of technological harassment of ex-wife and daughters
Maribel, a 53-year-old psychologist, divorced local police sub-inspector Víctor G. B. in 2022. When she asked him to leave the family home, what she describes as the worst period of her life began. According to elpais.com, the officer was imprisoned in Granada in July after being sentenced to 29 months for offences of habitual violence and psychological harm. Between the first complaint, filed in July 2023, and the start of the sentence, the ex-husband used his police knowledge to monitor and systematically harass her, repeatedly breaching the restraining order imposed by the judge.
"I told him to gather his things and leave my house… Then the greatest ordeal of my life began," Maribel declares, having found the courage to tell her story once Víctor G. B. began serving his sentence.
A three-decade relationship that deteriorated
The couple married in 1992. Maribel describes the relationship as "always complicated, though it was not always bad". The turning point, she recounts, came with the birth of their second daughter, at which point she adapted her professional trajectory to that of her husband, who worked as a local police officer in Motril, in the province of Granada. To avoid creating tensions, she sought employment at a care home in that coastal town.
Almost twenty years later, Maribel decided to move to the capital and further her education. Víctor's reaction, according to her account, was immediate: "he started to lose control". When she presented her doctoral thesis in 2017 and received a distinction of Cum Laude, he responded with the words: "You've got your way," rather than congratulating her. The judgment notes that from that moment onwards, "behaviours of control, jealousy and contempt towards her" intensified.
Maribel was already considering divorce and had even prepared a regulatory agreement. He promised treatment and change. She accepted not formalising it, but imposed one condition: to liquidate the matrimonial assets. "I was not willing to lose what was mine. And he agreed," she recalls. Today she regrets not having accelerated the process.
The judgment states that "during cohabitation, the defendant displayed aggressive behaviours—striking furniture, throwing objects—and maintained a contemptuous and hostile attitude towards his daughters as well".
Technological surveillance and repeated breaches of the restraining order
Víctor left the family home in September 2022. From that point on, the ordeal Maribel refers to took shape through a deployment of means that she attributes to the officer's technical knowledge. Despite changing the lock repeatedly, he continued to access the property. He would remove objects or move them to different locations. When Maribel installed surveillance cameras, he disabled them by cutting off the power supply. Furthermore, he placed a GPS tracker on her vehicle that allowed him to know her location at all times.
"He was trying to make me afraid and to make me look unhinged in the eyes of others. For him it was like a game of chess in which he made a move and I had to guess. If I won the move, then he would become embittered and take revenge," Maribel describes.
Among the episodes she lists is the day when her ex-husband sent a man dressed like him to frighten her. The list of breaches of the restraining order and surveillance, according to her, is too extensive. Víctor G. B. currently has seven pending legal cases linked to Maribel, in addition to three others related to professional matters: an alleged criminal organisation being investigated in the Granada Local Police in which, according to the latest inquiries, he figures as a relevant actor.
The daughters, also victims recognised in the judgment
The court decision recognises as proven fact that "the elder daughter, from her childhood, has witnessed episodes of verbal and psychological violence exercised by her father towards her mother, and has been the subject of numerous shouts and insults such as useless, slut, you will never amount to anything". The younger daughter testified to the judge that during a weekend with her father, he left her in what she called "the cave"—the paternal residence—"without food, without a telephone, suffering from the cold and isolated from her friends".
Maribel recalls with bitterness the impact on her elder daughter: "A beautiful time was lost, her university years. She lived that time confined to a residence, also with cameras, and I will not forget that. Her friends have been exceptional, but she did not live that stage as she should have".
A psychologist who acknowledges receiving institutional lack of support
As a professional, Maribel has spent years working with victims of gender violence. That experience, she states, has provided her with tools to resist. "My profession protected me from him destroying me," she explains. However, she considers that this same condition has harmed her in the judicial sphere.
"I have many years of forensic experience; my work has always been respected and highly valued. I expected support because, in a way, it was my environment. What I did not expect was the opposite," she laments. She adds that she came to perceive that her complaints were seen as a burden: "I started to see that what bothered the court was that I filed complaints because it was more work".
Despite the accumulated strain over years, Maribel endeavoured to remain focused. She received treatment from her own colleagues and tried to anticipate her ex-husband's movements. Maribel thanks the work carried out by the Guardia Civil and the National Police throughout the process.
The appeal of the judgment to the Provincial Court was the step that finally led to the imprisonment of the sub-inspector.
Source: Google News ES — Crime (es)