The sentence that convicted Miquel Roldán: "He was beside himself"

PalmThe arrival at CEIP Son Pisà of Miquel Roldán, a teacher convicted of child abuse, has provoked the reaction of families, who refuse to take their children there. The same already happened at the beginning of the course at CEIP Maria Antònia Salvà. Before, in the 2024-2025 academic year, he had been at CEIP Gabriel Janer i Manila, where there was also unease and nervousness. The Conselleria cannot remove him from teaching because he is not disqualified. And there is a fact to keep in mind: many people believe that Roldán is a sexual predator, but he is convicted of child abuse, according to article 172 ter of the Penal Code. 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 Criminal Court number 3 of Palma sentenced Miquel Roldán to one year in prison in accordance with article 172 of the Penal Code for a crime of harassment against a minor whom he had met some time ago, when he had been his teacher. Years later, they maintained a friendship linked to padel matches. 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 on various social networks and applications.

Relationship that deteriorated

According to the ruling, Roldán, who had been a substitute teacher for the minor during the 2016-2017 school year, resumed contact at the end of 2020 through paddle tennis. The relationship began to deteriorate when the minor started to feel “incomfortable” 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, the victim tried 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, looked for him 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 event witnessed by teachers at the center. The situation reached such a point that the center's management alerted the Local Police, who escorted the minor for weeks when entering and leaving the center.

The judge argues that this conduct caused an alteration in the minor's daily life, which reduced his social life, he stopped publishing content on social media to avoid being located, his participation in padel tournaments decreased, and he needed constant accompaniment from family members for 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 breakdown of contact and told him that if he did not receive them, he would "make a scene", that he "was very sorry, but that his family would suffer a lot".

Abnormal response in an adult

The magistrate rejects the defense's argument, which claimed that Roldán was merely seeking 'an explanation' for the distancing, and states that it 'clearly exceeds the normal response expected of an adult' to insist in this manner with a minor who had made it clear he did not want to have contact with him. 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 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 up for other things', 'You don't need to bring people, we can meet up ourselves', or that he didn't need to bring his partner. 'All this with the intention of meeting in other areas outside of paddle tennis and with fewer people,' the sentence says.

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

The former student, however, provides more facts to reinforce 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 from Roldán. The mother recounted, "clearly and without flaws," that episode: the son became "very nervous," told her he wouldn't shower and to give him the car keys because he would wait for him there. When the mother went to the vehicle, she saw how 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 “mvery overbearing and he didn't feel comfortable”. From that moment on, “a pursuit began”. “He followed him on the school bus, went to padel matches, went to the minor'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 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 contacted him afterwards on Instagram, with a new block.

This is why Roldán went as far as to create 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 did not understand him "and that he could not live like this". The accused said that he had been "messed up" for months because he did not understand the minor's change of attitude.

Next, other attempts at rapprochement took place. One of these occurred on 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 exonerating himself,” that it was not true because he worked until 3 p.m. that day. The minor, however, said “taxatively” 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 of this, contacted Roldán to repeatedly ask him to “leave their son alone”. “I didn’t understand, he was beside himself”, says the mother, and the sentence reflects this. Roldán had reportedly responded 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 in 2021, after the complaint that led to the stalking trial, Roldán published a music video in which images of the minor, recorded when they got along well, appeared. The student explained that the now convicted man had used the images to make a farewell video because the accused had disappeared “and supposedly, was going to take his own life”. In the video, he simulated jumping in front of train tracks. The minor said it was the worst Christmas of his life. “I was very scared and distressed for fear that he might ‘go after him’”. Furthermore, as a result of the song, the events that had occurred became publicly known, which until that moment had been attempted to be kept discreet.