The sentence that convicted Miquel Roldán: "He was out of his mind"

PalmMiquel Roldán is convicted of harassment of minors, according to article 172 ter of the Penal Code. In no case are sexual offenses attributed to him. ARA Balears has had access to the sentence that declared him guilty in the year 2024. What did he do and why was he convicted? The arrival of the teacher at CEIP Son Pisà has provoked the reaction of families, who refuse to take their children there. The same already happened at the beginning of the school year at CEIP Maria Antònia Salvà. Before, in the 2024-2025 school year, he had been at CEIP Gabriel Janer i Manila, where there was also unease and nervousness. The Ministry cannot remove him from teaching because he is not disqualified.

The Criminal Court number 3 of Palma convicted Miquel Roldán to one year in prison in accordance with article 172 of the Penal Code for a crime of harassment against a minor he had met some time ago, when he had been his teacher. Years later, they maintained a friendship linked to padel games. The magistrate considers it proven that Roldán maintained a “persistent and repeated” conduct to try to continue contact with the young man, despite the fact that he had expressly asked him to leave him alone and had blocked him from various social networks and applications.

Relationship that deteriorated

According to the ruling, Roldán, who had been the minor's substitute teacher during the 2016-2017 academic year, re-established contact at the end of 2020 through paddle tennis. The relationship began to deteriorate when the minor started to feel "uncomfortable" due to comments and attitudes from the convicted individual, such as expressions like 'handsome' or 'cutie' and invitations to meet up alone. Roldán defended these comments as habitual and reciprocal, within the framework of conversations based on joking and "banter."

From September 2021 onwards, the victim attempted to cut off contact definitively. Nevertheless, the ruling details that Roldán persisted repeatedly: he sent messages via WhatsApp and Instagram, created new accounts when blocked, sought him out at paddle tennis tournaments, waited for him at the school bus stop, and even showed up at IES Sant Marçal to try to speak with him, an incident witnessed by teachers at the school. The situation escalated to such an extent that the school administration notified the Local Police, who escorted the minor for weeks when entering and leaving the school.

The judge argues that this conduct caused an alteration in the minor's daily life, reducing his social life, ceasing to publish content on social media to avoid being located, decreasing participation in paddle tennis tournaments, and requiring constant accompaniment by family members due to fear of encountering the convicted person. The resolution also gives credibility to the testimonies of the family, teachers, and other people in his environment, who described changes in the minor, whom they saw as "terrified," "distressed," and "visibly uncomfortable."

It is also proven that Roldán went to the minor's father's house to ask for explanations about the break in contact and told him that, if he did not receive them, "I will mess things up", that

Abnormal response in an adult

The magistrate rejects the defense's argument, which maintained that Roldán was only seeking "an explanation" for the distancing, and states that insisting in that manner to a minor who had made it clear he did not want to maintain contact with him "clearly exceeds the normal expected response of an adult." In addition to the prison sentence, and in accordance with Article 172 of the Penal Code, the sentence imposes a four-year restraining order and communication ban, as well as compensation of 6,000 euros for the moral damages caused to the minor.

To resolve the case, the judge took into account the contributions of all parties. Thus, the minor explained that he and Roldán had a friendship for half a year, but that he began to "see strange things, comments that didn't seem normal to him and to notice that he didn't like the relationship." The victim stated that Roldán called him handsome" or said phrases like "we don't need to see each other to play paddle tennis, we can meet for other things," "You don't need to bring people, we can meet ourselves," or that he didn't need to bring his partner. "All this with the intention of meeting in other settings outside of paddle tennis and with fewer people," the sentence states.

The minor realized it was not a friendship and, at first, to avoid meeting the convicted person, he made excuses such as his foot or knee hurting. Roldán, as stated in the sentence's evidentiary burden, continued to insist until the minor expressed that he did not want contact with him. Regarding the words that made the minor uncomfortable, Roldán assured that they were not meant literally, a fact defended by the witnesses he provided: a friend and his brother. Roldán also said that, at a certain point, he noticed the minor's change in behavior, asked him what was wrong, and he replied that nothing was wrong.

The former student, however, provides more facts to support his complaint. As he explains, one day he was at the paddle tennis facilities and had to hide in his mother's car to escape Roldán. The mother recounted that episode, "clearly and without inconsistencies": her son became "very nervous," told her he would not shower and to give him the car keys because he would wait for him there. When the mother went to the vehicle, she saw Roldán had put his head inside the car and was insisting "thirteen is thirteen" to the minor.

Following the incident, the mother asked her son what was happening and he explained that he no longer wanted a relationship with Roldán because he was “very clingy and he didn't feel comfortable”. From that moment on, “a persecution began”. “He would follow him on the school bus, go to paddle tennis matches, go to the child's father's house”.

Block after block

The ruling considers it proven that the teacher successively tried to contact the minor, who kept blocking him on the different networks and sent him a message to tell him that he did not want any friendly relationship with him, that he should not contact him or write to him. After this message, Roldán insisted on meeting and the victim blocked him on WhatsApp. The teacher then contacted him again via Instagram, with a new block.

This is why Roldán went as far as creating a WhatsApp group in which he included the victim and his father and, subsequently, removed the parent to be left alone with the adolescent and tell him again that he wanted to talk, that he didn't understand him “and that he couldn't live like this”. The accused said he had been “stressed” for months because he didn't understand the minor's change in attitude.

Next, other attempts at rapprochement occurred. One of these took place the day Roldán waited for the minor at the bus stop where he usually got off to go home. Roldán said, “with the clear intention of excusing himself,” that it was not true because he worked until 3 p.m. that day. The minor, however, said ‘categorically’ that he had seen him sitting on the hood of the car and that, to avoid him, he got off at the next stop.

The parents, upon learning this, contacted Roldán to repeatedly ask him to “leave their son alone.” “I didn’t understand it, he was beside himself,” says the mother, and the sentence reflects it. Roldán would have replied that “until he spoke with the minor, he would not stop, that if he did not receive an explanation he could not move on.”

At Christmas 2021, after the complaint that led to the harassment trial, Roldán published a music video in which images of the minor recorded when they got along well appeared. The student explained that the already convicted person had used the images to make a farewell video because the accused disappeared “and supposedly, was going to take his own life.” In the video, he simulated jumping onto the train tracks. The minor said it was the worst Christmas of his life. “I was very scared and distressed in case he could ‘go after him’.” Furthermore, as a result of the song, the events that had happened became publicly known, which until that moment had been attempted to be kept discreet.