A mother of the women who denounced the president of the Provincial Delegation of Lugo and mayor of Monforte de Lemos, José Tomé, for alleged sexual harassment, assured that the party had been aware “for a year” of these alleged behaviors of the Lugo politician.
In … In an interview with the program “Código 10”, on Cuatro, this woman, who is also a party activist, explained that her daughter was “the last victim of Tomé” and that, in her case, they had known it since October.
With his back to the camera, to preserve his privacy, he explained that he had written on October 1 to the leader of the Galician socialists, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, to tell him that he had to speak to him “urgently”. His intention was to explain the ordeal his daughter was undergoing. The program published the screenshots of the WhatsApp conversation.
He wrote to her again on October 6 to remind her that he had to speak to her urgently, but Besteiro was in Brussels, so they met the next day. During this meeting, according to his version, the secretary general of the PSdeG told him that he “could do nothing”. “It stayed like that,” laments this woman about the reaction of the PSdeG leader. Consequently, Besteiro would have known of the existence of this latest alleged case of harassment for more than two months.
The victim’s mother also detailed in the interview what happened to Tomé and her daughter. According to his version, the president of the Provincial Delegation of Lugo and mayor of Monforte told him: “If you want to work at the Town Hall of Monforte, a place, you have to sleep with me.”
Faced with this proposal, her daughter was “stunned”. And when she refused to go up to his office with him, Tomé “grabbed her arm three times”, until the victim “nudged him to make him let go”, again according to the version of the victim’s mother.
This episode allegedly occurred when Tomé discovered that the alleged victim was preparing an opposition. “Why study so much, if you want, I can get you the job another way,” the mother explains what the mayor said to her daughter. Tomé assured her that she would get the job “if it was in her power,” but that he had to do something “in return.”
These statements come in a context of deep crisis within the Galician PSOE, with significant internal criticism of the way the current leadership of the party has handled the complaints of half a dozen women against Tomé. They accuse Besteiro and his team of slowness and lack of transparency.
The general secretary of the PSdeG has been defending for several days that the leadership acted as quickly as possible, always putting, he says, the interests of women, trying not to denounce them and trying to convince them to denounce Tomé to the police, to the prosecutor’s office or to the court.
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