Dani Alves spent 16 minutes in nightclub bathroom with alleged victim - court sources
Judicial sources have told TV3 that security-camera footage from Barcelona’s Sutton nightclub shows Alves going with the complainant into the VIP restroom.
Dani Alves has now spent two nights in a Barcelona jail, after a Spanish judge ordered that the footballer be held on remand, without the possibility of bail, over sexual abuse allegations against him. A 23-year-old woman has accused Alves of physically assaulting and raping her in a nightclub in the city on 30 December.
Alves offers changing version of events
The alleged victim’s version of events, given at Barcelona’s Ciutat de Justícia courthouse on Friday, was deemed “coherent” and “consistent”, and tallied with the images recorded by security cameras at the Sutton nightclub, located in the Catalan capital’s upmarket Sant Gervasi-Galvany district.
Alves’ statements, on the other hand, have changed several times: from an interview on Spanish TV in which he said he did not know who the complainant was, to the testimony he gave to the judge, in which he claimed the pair had consensual sex.
Sources involved in the investigation have told the Spanish newspaper El País that the woman has rejected the chance to receive financial compensation from Alves. Her only aim is to see justice served through a custodial sentence.
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Footage shows Alves going to bathroom with complainant
Meanwhile, Catalan media outlet TV3 has cited sources with intimate knowledge of the case as describing Alves’ attitude in the courtroom as narcissistic, with a sense that he felt above the law and above right and wrong.
Court sources have also revealed to TV3 that the security footage from Sutton shows Alves talking to the complainant, touching her without her consent, and going with her into the VIP area bathroom for a period of 16 minutes.
After the alleged sexual assault, the woman alerted Sutton’s security staff, and the nightclub activated its protocol of assistance to victims of sexual violence. She then filed a police complaint against Alves on 2 January, having initially hesitated to do so out of fear that she would not be believed.