A Barcelona judge has sentenced paparazi Jordi Martín to one year in prison for a crime of harassment and another of injuries to Clara Chía, the romantic partner of former Barça footballer Gerard Piqué. The ruling made public this Wednesday, June 26, also prohibits the photographer from approaching or communicating with Chía for a year and a half and requires him to pay compensation of 13,000 euros for the moral damages caused. The sentence is not final and, given that these are very short sentences (six months for each crime), Martín will not go to prison.
The sentence considers it proven that Martín committed a crime of harassment because he “insistently and repeatedly” disturbed and made Clara Chía’s daily existence “unbearable” during at least 10 months of “intense” persecution. The young woman had to modify her habits, change her address, restrict her leisure patterns, stop visiting her family or “stop going to the gym,” the judge considers proven. Her harassment affected her at work (she had to leave her job for a while) and personally (she was always accompanied by someone else).
“The flood of surveillance, stalking, references on social media and so on can only be described as an intimidating attitude,” the ruling continues. The paparazzi’s obsession caused Piqué’s partner “intimidated and uneasy,” concludes the judge of Barcelona’s 14th criminal court, Jaume García Mendaza, who insists on “the seriousness of the conduct displayed” by the accused. A year ago, this harassment ceased, but only because the judge imposed a precautionary measure on the photographer, prohibiting him from coming within 400 metres of the young woman. Martín maintains that the surveillance of the couple was part of his work as a journalist.
Public figures are often subjected to scrutiny by the press. Martín’s attitude, however, “has far exceeded the limits of what could be acceptable” taking into account the media impact that the news of the relationship between Chía and Gerard Piqué had. It was not, the judge insists, a “mere annoyance”, but something much more serious, a “harassment” that has had even pathological consequences, which the young woman has been able to prove during the criminal proceedings.
In June 2022, the relationship between Gerard Piqué and Clara Chía was made public, after the footballer and Shakira announced that they had broken off their relationship after 12 years together and two children together. Since then, the new couple has monopolized the focus of media interest. Martín became one of the photographers who followed the two most intensely, who ended up filing a complaint against him for harassment just the following year, in June 2023. Chía requested a restraining order (which was granted) and the case He was awaiting sentencing.
