HISTORY doesn’t have to be confined to the Middle Ages.
Recent events (and here we’re discussing a fatal accident involving a pop group and the Guardia Civil) can be instructive.
On 29 June, 2017, Miguel Campos Lopez was taken into custody in Torremolinos.
Known to friends and colleagues as La Polilla (‘The Moth’), he was clearly the driver responsible for crashing into a people-carrier, and causing the deaths of three passengers.
What made it worse was, this wasn’t the first time that Campos, under the influence of drugs and alcohol, had injured other road-users.
And what made it even worse still was – he was a sergeant of the Guardia Civil.
Three people died as a result of the collision – two citizens of Bahrain and a woman from Kuwait.
The driver of the people-carrier and various other occupants were injured.
The accident occurred on the A-7 trunk road just outside Torremolinos, near the Trade Fair, on the Cadiz-bound side.
Traffic was delayed for several hours as the victims were taken to a nearby Intensive Care Unit, and the wreckage was removed from the carriageway.
Campos, who was arrested at the scene, despite attempting to run away, later proved positive for having intoxicating substances in his blood system. He was immediately dismissed from the Guardia Civil.
The three people who lost their lives were all in their mid-20s. A mother and daughter, who suffered a broken hip and a fractured thigh bone respectively, were deemed not to be in life-threatening peril.
Having just arrived at Maria Zambrano station, the group was travelling by taxi to Marbella when the collision happened.
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Two and a half years after the accident, Miguel Campos Lopez was sentenced to four years in prison for manslaughter.
But the matter doesn’t end there.
It’s worth, at this point, mentioning ‘breach of trust’.
Both the Spanish and the British systems of criminal law recognise that an offence is more serious if the person committing it is in a position of trust, but fails to live up to that trust.
To take an extreme example, robbing a bank is bad, but if it’s the bank manager who does it, that’s worse.
A bank manager who abuses trust in this way can expect severe punishment.
Police officers who cause accidents because they are intoxicated fall into this category.
Miguel Campos came from a privileged background. Family connections got him a place in the Guardia Academy as a cadet (officers who come from the cadets are called ‘moths’, because they are – supposedly – willing to work through the night).
In other words, he should have known better.
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It seems that ‘The Moth’ has previous – and somewhat bizarre – form.
In 2014, when he was based in Tolox, he caused a similar accident involving two cars and a motorcycle. Again, he ran away from the scene.
The people of Tolox were not happy that a sergeant of the Guardia Civil was able to escape the consequences of drink-driving so easily.
At the subsequent village carnival, a local pop group composed a song about ‘The Moth’.
This was all more than a decade ago, and the facts are understandably hazy, but Sergeant Campos seems to have bullied the group into not performing their protest song – so much so that they took out a ‘non-molestation’ order against him.
And a popular Moth-Must-Go rally was held.
This led to Campos’ disciplinary record being made public.
Between 2010 and 2016, it turns out, no fewer than six investigations were conducted into the behaviour of Miguel Campos, some for very serious offences.
He had even been suspended from duty.
Finally, in January 2019, ‘The Moth’ was brought back before the courts.
This time he was charged – and found guilty – with regard to the Tolox accident in which three people were injured, of fleeing the scene to avoid a blood test.
He was given a further eighteen months’ custody.
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