Presumed Guilty: When Justice Fails the Innocent in Domestic Violence Cases

The following story underscores the critical importance of upholding the presumption of innocence. Unfortunately, even in Malta, we increasingly see a reversal of this principle in domestic violence cases, where individuals are treated as guilty unless they can prove their innocence. In Spain, one man lost three years of his life, three years during which he was unable to see his daughter, because this distorted logic was applied. The story, as reported in a Spanish newspaper, is a striking example of what happens when due process is sacrificed to presumption.

The following story could easily be the plot of a film—perhaps a B-movie, or, depending on the screenwriter, even a masterful thriller. It’s the valid account of a man from Burgos who began as the accused in a gender violence case and ended up as the proven victim of a malicious scheme that kept him from seeing his daughter for more than three years. He has now been acquitted, and the real perpetrator—a woman driven by jealousy—has been sentenced to eight months in prison.

To follow this civil guard’s ordeal accurately, one must respect the chronology of events. For privacy reasons, let’s call him Pedro. He was in a relationship that resulted in the birth of a daughter. After the relationship ended, tensions emerged between the former couple, mostly surrounding the custody and visitation arrangements for the child.

On one occasion, the Civil Guard visited Pedro’s home to check on the child’s well-being after the mother had tried unsuccessfully to contact her during Pedro’s assigned visitation time. On another, Pedro repeatedly called his ex-partner, concerned that he hadn’t heard from either her or the daughter on a day when the child was meant to be in his care.

Then came October 2022. The mother began receiving nearly a thousand calls over a month, all from a hidden number. Most were silent. But in a chilling few seconds, a distorted voice uttered terrifying threats: “You and your daughter are going to die,” “One day she’ll disappear from school,” and “You’ll both be buried in the same village.”

The woman filed a complaint and, without concrete proof, pointed the finger at her ex, Pedro. On November 4, 2022, the Court for Violence Against Women issued a restraining order, forbidding Pedro from any contact with his daughter. That order remained in place until recently, when the Criminal Court No. 3 acquitted him entirely.

Pedro’s experience has been, in his own words, Kafkaesque. But finally, after three years, he has been allowed to see his daughter again.

So what happened?

It’s a story tangled in love—or more accurately, jealousy. The mother’s phone number had, by chance, ended up saved in the contact list of another Civil Guard stationed in Burgos. He and the woman had met and shared some intimacy, but the connection did not last. That officer was later transferred to Ávila, where he began a new relationship.

His new girlfriend discovered the former contact on his phone and grew suspicious. Consumed by jealousy and mistrust, she decided to take matters into her own hands. She began making threatening calls to the child’s mother, using a hidden number and a disguised voice.

The irony? The Civil Guard itself—Pedro’s institution—conducted the investigation, which ultimately traced the calls back to her phone. In court, she confessed: she had found the woman’s number in her boyfriend’s call logs and, driven by jealousy, decided to make the anonymous calls “to find out what kind of relationship he had with her.”

Justice was finally served—but at a high cost. A man falsely accused lost three precious years of his daughter’s life. A child was denied by her father. And the justice system, once again, demonstrated how quickly the presumption of innocence can be discarded when ideology, emotion, or bureaucracy takes the wheel.