Media Accompaniment for a Public Figure Under Criminal Investigation in Spain

For a person in the public eye, a criminal investigation is fought on two fronts at once: the courtroom and public opinion. Trial by media can arrive long before —and prove more lasting than— any court ruling. Media accompaniment is the discipline that coordinates criminal defence with reputation protection so that the two fronts do not work against each other. As a criminal defence firm for high-exposure clients, we explain what this service involves, when it is appropriate and what it offers.

What Media Accompaniment Is

Media accompaniment is not marketing communication, nor does it replace the client's press office. It is the coordination layer that sits between the procedural strategy and the public response. Its premise is simple: in a criminal case, the priority is always the defence, and communication is subordinate to it, never the other way around.

The high-exposure client usually arrives with their own ecosystem of advisors —family office, communications agency, commercial firms, tax advisors. Criminal defence does not replace them, it integrates them under a common protocol. The aim is to avoid the most frequent and most damaging scenario: different voices issuing uncoordinated messages that end up harming the investigated person's procedural position.

When to Activate It

The moment of activation is decisive. The sooner the defence and communications are coordinated, the lower the risk of an unfortunate first message that later has to be corrected. The typical scenarios are:

• The opening of proceedings or being summoned as an investigated person, especially if it reaches the media.
• A leak of information about the case before the client has even been able to give a statement.
• The carrying out of visible investigative steps —searches, arrests— with foreseeable press coverage.
• The appearance of publications presenting as guilty a person who is only being investigated.
• The key procedural milestones (statement, opening of the trial, judgment) that concentrate media attention.

In all these scenarios, the difference between a manageable crisis and one that drags on for months usually lies in the first twenty-four or forty-eight hours. That is the moment when it is decided who speaks, what is said and, above all, what is not said. A message improvised under the pressure of the first headline can shape the entire subsequent line of defence, because what is said in the heat of the moment is recorded and may be turned against the investigated person before the court. This is why media accompaniment works with anticipated scenarios: before the crisis breaks, the possible responses and the limits of each are already mapped out.

The Secrecy of the Proceedings Is the Red Line

The first limit of any communication strategy in a criminal case is the secrecy of the proceedings. The defence may issue legitimate communications, but it cannot disclose what is covered by secrecy.

Article 466 of the Criminal Code (CP) punishes the disclosure of the secrecy of the investigation. For a lawyer or court agent (art. 466.1 CP), the penalty is a fine of twelve to twenty-four months and special disqualification from public employment, office, profession or occupation of one to four years. For a judge, prosecutor, court clerk (letrado de la Administración de Justicia) or official serving the Administration of Justice who engages in that conduct (art. 466.2 CP), the penalties of art. 417 CP are imposed in their upper half. This framework deserves precision, because it is sometimes described loosely: disclosure of court secrecy by counsel is not a flat prison penalty.

Defending Honour: Calumny and Injury

Media accompaniment also operates in the opposite direction: when it is the client who suffers a media attack. The right to honour is protected through both the civil and the criminal route.

• Calumny / slander (arts. 205 and 206 CP): the imputation of a crime made with knowledge of its falsity or reckless disregard for the truth. Committed with publicity —as happens in the media— it is punished with imprisonment of six months to two years or a fine of twelve to twenty-four months; without publicity, with a fine of six to twelve months.
• Injury / insult (arts. 208 and 209 CP): the act or expression that harms another person's dignity, damaging their reputation or self-esteem. Only serious injury is a crime. Unlike calumny, injury never carries a prison sentence: serious injury committed with publicity is punished with a fine of six to fourteen months and, otherwise, with a fine of three to seven months.

Alongside the criminal route, there is the civil protection of honour and the right of reply, which allows the affected person's version to be circulated in response to inaccurate and damaging reporting. The choice between these routes is not automatic: a poorly calibrated complaint can amplify precisely what one wanted to silence.

Presumption of Innocence and Trial by Media

The presumption of innocence binds public authorities directly, but it also projects effects in the media arena. It does not prevent reporting on an ongoing investigation, but it does prohibit presenting as guilty a person who is still being investigated. Trial by media —that public narrative that anticipates the conviction— is one of the most characteristic harms for a high-exposure profile, and often the hardest to reverse.

The work of media accompaniment consists, to a large extent, in not feeding that parallel trial and in intervening proportionately when the limits are crossed: sometimes with a right of reply, sometimes with actions for calumny or injury, and often with a strategic silence that avoids handing over fresh headlines.

It must also be borne in mind that the criminal reproach of calumny and injury coexists with a constitutional limit of the first order: freedom of information and expression. Where the reporting concerns matters of public relevance and has been checked with due diligence, the media's margin is wide, and a hasty criminal reaction may fail and, in doing so, reignite the media focus on the client. That is why the decision to file a complaint is not a reflex act, but the result of a technical assessment that weighs the truthfulness of what was published, its defamatory nature and the reputational cost of placing the matter back in the headlines.

The Coordination Protocol

In practice, accompaniment is structured through a protocol that orders the relationship between all the actors involved:

• Who decides what: the criminal defence sets the limits of what can be communicated; the communications agency executes within those limits.
• A single voice: the proliferation of spokespeople and contradictory messages is avoided.
• Shielding professional secrecy: the circulation of sensitive information is restricted and access is controlled.
• Synchronising timing: procedural action and public communication are scheduled so as not to contradict each other at the key milestones.
• Prepared messaging: responses to foreseeable scenarios are anticipated, so that no statement is improvised under pressure.

The media accompaniment page sets out how this layer is integrated with the rest of the defence strategy for the high-reputation client.

What Coordinated Criminal Defence Offers

The main contribution is coherence. When communication is decided from within the defence and not outside it, the risk that a hasty headline compromises the procedural position is reduced. The secrecy of the proceedings is protected, the presumption of innocence is preserved against trial by media and, where appropriate, attacks on honour are met proportionately.

In this field, the settled case law of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court on the balance between freedom of information, the right to honour and the presumption of innocence sets the terrain on which any reputational strategy operates. Knowing that framework makes it possible to distinguish legitimate information from an actionable attack, and to act accordingly.

Criminal and Reputational Defence in Madrid and Throughout Spain

The criminal law firm Alonso Sala, based at Calle Velázquez 27 in Madrid and with coverage throughout Spain, assists public figures investigated for an offence in coordinating criminal defence with the protection of their reputation. We work on shielding professional secrecy, the response to attacks on honour and the communication protocols around the milestones of the proceedings, always with the priority of the defence strategy.