Preliminary hearing of Rosa Peral's trial against Netflix suspended
The judge has postponed the hearing because Peral has had his custody of his minor daughter suspended since he entered prison.
BarcelonaRosa Peral's lawsuit against Netflix for the series The body on fire The trial was supposed to start today, but it did not happen after the judge decided to suspend the preliminary hearing that was to be held in the court of first instance of Vilanova i la Geltrú (Barcelona). The former agent of the Barcelona City Guard claims 30 million euros for violation of the right to honorr, in her own image and in the personal privacy of her and her daughter, a minor, who also appears represented in the fiction. At the request of the prosecution, the judge has postponed the hearing because Peral has had her custody of the minor suspended since she entered prison. The magistrate has given the girl's father ten days to say whether he wants to be the one to claim his rights.
The body on fire tells the story of the murder of Pedro Rodríguez, Rosa Peral's partner and her colleague in the Guardia Urbana. The former agent is serving a 25-year prison sentence as co-author of the crime, which occurred in May 2017. The series, starring Ursula Corbero and Quim Gutierrez, premiered in September 2023 and quickly became one of the most popular series on Netflix. Although it is based on the real events of the Guardia Urbana crime, it takes some liberties, such as, for example, making the protagonist have only one daughter, when in real life she has two.
Peral's lawsuit argues that the former agent has become the involuntary protagonist of a series in which he appears played by Úrsula Corberó, an actress who resembles him, which makes her "totally recognizable and identifiable to the viewer." It also adds that he never gave up his image rights or gave consent for his daughters to appear.
For its part, Netflix maintains that The body on fire It is not a documentary, but a product of "pure fiction, which allows us to rule out both the intrusion into the fundamental rights to privacy and one's own image." The platform also argues that while the series has "undeniable similarities with real events," creative liberties have been taken.
Taking into account that until May 2024 The body on fire had been watched 26.6 million hours worldwide –Netflix provides audience data in terms of hours consumed–, Peral's defense claims one euro for each hour watched for her daughter, for the moral damages caused, and ten cents for Peral "for the image she gives as a mother."
A week before the premiere of the series, Peral filed a lawsuit demanding to be able to review the fiction before its release. Among other things, the former agent wanted to see if the way she was treated as a mother could be detrimental to her when it came to obtaining prison permits to visit her daughters. The court dismissed the claim, considering that the financial deposit required to file a legal action of this type had not been submitted, but the Barcelona Court ultimately ruled in favour of the former agent. According to the court's criteria, claims should only be rejected for processing "in exceptional cases and when the law expressly establishes this."