Spanish police have arrested a man suspected of sexual assault, following an appearance on TV where he appeared to grab a reporter on the bottom during a live cross.
Police posted a video to X/Twitter, showing a man in handcuffs escorted by officers, with the description "arrested for sexually assaulting a reporter while she was doing a live cross on television."
It comes after Isa Balado was reporting in Madrid on Tuesday about a robbery for the show 'En Boca de Todos' (On Everyone's Lips), when a man on the street approached her from behind.
He allegedly groped Balado's bottom as she was talking to the show's presenter in-studio, Nacho Abad.
"We're live on television," Balado said to the man.
"Sorry to interrupt Isa, but did he just touch your rear?" asked Abad.
She confirmed he did, and the presenter then asked for the "idiot" to be brought back into view.
"I'd like you to let me work," Balado told the man.
After chatting with Balado on-camera for about 30 seconds, he pats her on the head before walking away.
"An imbecile. He has no right," Abad said afterwards.
"You have nothing to feel sorry for."
"It's very unpleasant, particularly when you are working," she said.
In a later segment, Balado revealed the man had tried to talk to her again before she requested the broadcast to be stopped.
Yolanda Díaz, Spain's Minister of Labour and Socioeconomics blasted the man's behaviour.
"Machismo is what makes journalists have to endure sexual assaults like this, and that the aggressors don't have a hint of remorse in front of a camera," Díaz wrote on X/Twitter.
Irene Montero, the Minister of Equality was also irate.
"Non-consensual touching is sexual violence," she wrote on X/Twitter.
The Madrid magistrate's court released him the day after he was taken into custody, spurring even more public outrage.
"He hasn't even been in there for 24 hours," said television presenter Verónica Dulanto.
The judge did not believe there was an ongoing threat to Balado, CNN reported, but the court will continue its criminal proceedings nonetheless.
The man's arrest comes just days after the Spanish football federation boss Luis Rubiales resigned.
Rubiales, 46, faced global backlash for kissing Spanish women's football star Jennifer Hermoso without consent, after Spain's win in the World Cup.
He had previously described the kiss as "mutual" which Hermoso vehemently denied.
