It is the most documented persecution in Italy: thirty complaints to the judicial authority, video, photos, audio. But it is also the least repressed. Nobody stops DC, a forty-year-old from Aprilia who two years ago turned into Marina’s stalker (fictitious name) his ex-partner and mother of four children.
Not a ban on approach, not an arrest for the seriality with which he dedicates himself to persecuting his victim, not just any measure (despite criminal records).
The latest attack on Tuesday: he entered the house and broke the furniture
«On Tuesday morning – she says – after yet another incursion on his part I had to go to the emergency room…». What did they tell her? «The doctors diagnosed me with anxiety disorders: palpitations, vomiting, tremor. Four days of prognosis… it’s just one of the many episodes I’ve suffered.” Images taken from a cell phone tell of brazen violence, bordering on exhibition on the part of his ex. C., having climbed over the gate, overturned furniture and smashed furnishings with a sudden fury, even under the gaze of a carabinieri patrol: «He shouted: “Infamous, I’ll kill you!” and the police seemed powerless in the face of this drama. Yet another for me and my children.” How did he get in? «From a broken window on the first floor. Then he started destroying everything and threatening me.” Attacks to which Marina has not yet become accustomed. «It was 9.30 in the morning and he had been drinking. It happens often. I tried to deal with the situation. But all this has a cost in psychological terms.”
«He feels untouchable because no one stops him»
C. was sent to trial on May 23rd for aggravated harassment. In the abstract he should keep his anger in check, if only for fear of conviction. Instead? «She feels untouchable – says her ex – as if everything was legitimate. The arrogance, the insults, the threats, the humiliations. “It’s like living in fear day after day.” Marina denounced him and denounced him, documenting the many abuses she suffered. Then, faced with institutional inertia, she almost gave up. Small stratagems save her life from time to time: «The other day he (he never calls him by name, ed.) called me to tell me that his license had been taken away: he wanted me to pick him up. I said no, of course».
The red code procedures were never triggered: “I’m disheartened”
Its history is in the papers filed with Velletri Prosecutor’s Office where, however, the procedures foreseen by the so-called have never been implemented code redthose measures that serve to protect women from their stalkers. Marina, do you have the feeling that you are not taken seriously? She sighs but prefers not to answer. If you depend on the police, perhaps it is better not to make an institutional attack. “I’m disheartened, I admit it,” she says alone. There are days when fears the worst even if he prefers not to talk about it.
After many requests to the magistrates his lawyer, the criminal lawyer Sonia Battagliesecounterattacks: «The institutions, without exception, do nothing but advise women to report their tormentors. However, I believe that they don’t have the slightest idea of what an ordinary person goes through when he decides to turn to the authorities to report and what it means to have absolute emptiness around you. I don’t want to think that in Italy the law only works if you are powerful but I fear that ordinary mortals are only left with the hope of not being killed by their executioner.”
