Shocking moment TV journalist is groped by a creep who grabs her behind as she reports live from Madrid – before police arrest him for sexual assault

This is the shocking moment a Spanish television journalist was accosted and sexually assaulted by a man today while reporting live from Madrid.

Isa Balado was delivering a report at a local supermarket when the man approached her from behind and grabbed her buttocks, the footage shows.

Despite the interruption, Balado maintained her composure and told the man to let her “do my job.” Despite her pleas, the stranger persisted and even rudely touched her hair as he walked away, before returning to continue talking to her.

The man was later arrested by police, with the Spanish National Armed Forces posting a video on social media showing officers taking him to a police station.

Balado was reporting from Calle del Duque de Alba, a street that runs through the center of Madrid, when the attack took place.

She reported on an incident that took place on Sunday at a store seen behind her in the clip. The news report showed CCTV footage from inside the store, with Balado exaggerating the events.

As she talks to the camera of news channel En Boca De Todos (On Everyone’s Lips), you see the man – dressed in white shorts, a blue jacket and dark sunglasses – coming into the street behind the reporter.

Without saying a word, he reaches behind Balado and touches her bottom.

Visibly nervous, Balado tries to continue her report and says, “Sorry, just a minute,” before telling the man, “We’re live on TV.”

But presenter Nacho Abad, the presenter in the studio, asks Balado: ‘Isa, sorry to bother you. The sound is really bad. Did he just touch your ass?’

The awkward young reporter tells the host that the man did indeed touch her, and the camera adjusts to show both Balado and the man.

The man appears to ask her which television channel she works for, prompting Balado to tell him, “As much as you want to know which TV channel we are, do you really have to grope me?” I’m working on a live report.’

In response to the accusation, the man tells her, “I didn’t touch your ass.”

“Yes,” Balado answers, while someone on the street suggests calling the police.

Balado again asks the man to leave her alone so she can continue her work, while Abad calls the man in the studio “a complete imbecile.”

“I didn’t want to touch your ass. I respect you, you know, I wouldn’t touch you,” the stranger says, asking the reporter again to tell him to “let me work.”

As he begins to walk away, the man reaches in again, this time to touch Balado on her head. “Is this guy stupid or something?” Abad is heard saying.

In a second fragment you hear the presenter talking to his colleague during the broadcast and saying to her: ‘Isa, I understand that this is an extremely uncomfortable moment for you, and (an) absolutely disgusting situation.’

Balado is seen back on the same street talking to a woman about the incident, just down the road from the store she had been standing in front of.

The woman next to her suggests that his actions were “normal” for that part of town.

‘It’s not about me, it happens to all the girls he meets. It’s very disgusting while I’m trying to work,” Balado says as the camera moves again, filming the man harassing another on the street.

“As you can see, he’s there. He is accompanied by another man in a hat. He probably has nothing to do all day,” the reporter says, as the man approaches her from behind again.

Abad warns his colleague that he is coming back and says: ‘Isa, turn around, turn around, he is coming at you again. He’s behind you, quickly, turn around!’

The man starts talking to Balado again, and – perhaps realizing that he has been caught red-handed on television – appears to protest his innocence and call her baby.

“I heard what you said earlier… Tell them the truth!” he says. “What do you mean by telling the truth?” Balado fires back before the presenter ends the broadcast.

Although the man’s identity is unknown, Spain’s national police released a short video later on Tuesday afternoon showing the same man – wearing a blue jacket and white shorts – being led to a police station after being arrested.

“Arrested for sexually assaulting a reporter while doing a live television show,” police said in the Tweet.

Abad later revealed on air that it was the program that had taken action and called the police. ‘We called them because they need to take action. We hope to have the footage of the arrest of this unrepresentative person,” he said.

Another reporter from the channel, Diego Losada, said: “Our colleague was doing her job and a person, smiling, touched her buttocks without her consent. The most important thing is that this disgusting individual is now arrested.”

He also called for justice over the incident, saying: “We condemn all forms of aggression and in this case it has hit us very hard because attacking Isa is the same as attacking any of us. In a society where we want to improve, this cannot happen and this sense of impunity cannot exist.

“This shows a lack of respect and I hope the full weight of the law falls on him.”

The shocking incident comes in the wake of a scandal surrounding the head of the Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubiales, that rocked Spain.

Rubiales announced on Sunday that he was stepping down after kissing player Jenni Hermoso in the aftermath of her country’s victory at the Women’s World Cup in August, sparking outrage at home and abroad.

Today, Rubiales was ordered to testify before a Spanish judge investigating the kiss. Rubiales says she consented to the kiss, but Hermoso has denied it.

Judge Francisco de Jorge ordered Rubiales to answer his questions at Spain’s National Court in Madrid on Friday, according to court documents seen by The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Spanish prosecutors last week formally charged Rubiales with alleged sexual abuse and coercion when, according to Hermoso, he pressured her to speak out in his defense immediately after the scandal broke.

Rubiales announced on Sunday that he is resigning from his position, from which he had already been provisionally suspended by FIFA.

De Jorge is conducting the preliminary investigation into the allegations against Rubiales, and will then decide whether the case should go to trial.

Under a sexual consent law passed in Spain last year, Rubiales could face a fine or jail term of one to four years if found guilty of sexual assault.

The new law eliminated the difference between ‘sexual harassment’ and ‘assault’, making any non-consensual sexual act punishable.

The incident has proven to be something of a ‘Me Too’ movement in Spain, empowering many women to come forward with their own experiences, and spotlighting the issue of sexual violence.