An Oxford University graduate has insisted in court today that he cut off his own penis and exonerated a flatmate accused of amputating it.
Andrew Breach, 35, said Spaniard Aaron Beltran had nothing to do with the amputation.
The 31-year-old rapper faces up to four and a half years in jail if convicted of wounding the English teacher on March 8, 2019 when the Brit was living and working in the northern Spanish city of Zaragoza.
Andrew Breach, 35, (pictured) as insisted in court today that he cut off his own penis and exonerated a flatmate accused of amputating it
State prosecutors say Beltran agreed to slice off Mr Breach’s manhood with a 12-inch kitchen knife for a sliding scale payment based on the number of views a gory video of the amputation received online – starting at £173 (€200) and rising to a maximum of £2,164 (€2,500).
They have accepted the British expat wanted his penis sliced off because he suffered from gender dysphoria but are arguing that does not exempt the Spaniard from criminal responsibility.
But Mr Breach, who claimed Beltran was to blame in one of his police interviews, said today in court at the start of the trial: ‘I cut my own penis off.
‘It’s what I said in my first two statements and I know I changed it in my third statement but that was because I was under a lot of pressure from the police and I was scared.
‘I was ill and I was worried that I would face charges.
‘I don’t owe Aaron anything but at the same time I’m a man of conscience and I don’t want to send someone who is innocent to jail.’
Speaking via video-link, he told three judges at Zaragoza Provincial Court via a translator: ‘I’ve sworn to tell the truth and I’m not going to make things up.
‘What I’m saying today is what happened. Aaron had nothing to do with all this.’
The trial opened with Beltran, a rapper who performed under the artistic name of Sanatorio del Atico or Attic Sanatorium in English, insisting he was an innocent man and his flatmate carried out the amputation himself.
One of the two police officers who assisted Mr Breach after he found him bleeding heavily in the street outside his flat moments after the amputation, told the court: ‘He was covered in blood and he was losing a lot of blood.
‘He was saying: “I’ve done it, I’ve done it.”‘
The town hall-employed officer, who was identified only by his service number and not his name, added: ‘The first thing we did was to control the haemorrhaging otherwise he was going to bleed to death.
‘The British man said he had amputated it.
‘We followed the trail of blood to where it had come from because we had no real idea what was going on and we couldn’t really believe what we were seeing.
‘The trail went cold by a lift just inside the doorway of the block of flats where he was living.
‘We went up the building floor by floor till we got to the fifth floor and saw blood on the ground.
‘The defendant opened the door to us.
‘He said the other man had cut his penis off in the bathroom.
He gave the amputated member to my colleague in a bag. He told state prosecutor Asuncion Lozada from the witness stand: ‘The defendant appeared to be hiding things. He said things which made no sense. He wasn’t acting in a normal way.’
A police colleague told the court: ‘The injured man looked like he was gone.
‘Despite the seriousness of the situation he was smiling and saying, “I’ve done it, I’ve done it.”‘
Spaniard Aaron Beltran (pictured) faces up to four and a half years in jail if convicted of wounding the English teacher on March 8, 2019 when the Brit was living and working in the northern Spanish city of Zaragoza
He added: ‘The defendant handed me a rubbish bag with the penis inside it when we reached his flat although I had to pressure him a little.
‘My priority at that moment was to run as fast as I could towards the ambulance downstairs because I thought the sooner they were able to try to fix the situation the better.’
Beltran was arrested five days after the amputation horror and held in custody for four months before being bailed ahead of his trial.
Police investigators told the court the Spaniard became the focus of the criminal probe after Mr Breach incriminated him in one of his statements and another flatmate confessed Beltran had confided in him about the ‘sliding-scale payment’ he had agreed with the English teacher for the amputation.
The lead National Police investigator, who was also identified only by his serial number, also revealed officers had discovered an ad on gay social media app Scruff in which the Brit stated: ‘I am looking for a man to film me while I cut my d##k off.’
Gerardo Bazan Monasterio, one of the five flatmates at the city centre Zaragoza apartment Mr Breach lived at, said: ‘Aaron came to my room the morning of March 8 2019 and said he had been offered money to cut someone’s penis.
‘He said he was being offered a guaranteed payment for doing it which would go up if the video of it went viral.
‘I didn’t believe it at first but when I woke up from my siesta and discovered police in the flat, I realised it had happened.
‘I had asked Aaron who he was going to do it to and he said, ‘To the English guy.’ ‘The video I didn’t want to see was a video showing how it was done.
He added: ‘Andrew had told me he felt like a woman on occasions but I never thought something like this was going to happen.’
Under defence questioning, Mr Bazan admitted he had given a statement to police while he was in a hospital psychiatric wing being treated for mental health problems.
He also confessed he had taken drugs including speed the day of the amputation. Jose Luis Melguizo, Beltran’s defence lawyer, said before the trial started his client should be acquitted because Mr Breach ‘did it himself.’
He has also insisted that even if it is proven his client was involved, the victim’s penis had been reattached and is working properly and the amputation was a consensual act.
The English teacher at the centre of the extraordinary trial describes himself as an Oxford University graduate in English language and literature on his online profile.
He taught for nearly five years in Zaragoza after spells in China and the Middle East teaching English as a foreign language.
The trial continues.