VOTERS in the Catalan independence referendum have told the trial of pro-independence leaders how Spanish police officers beat them as they tried to cast their ballots.

Some witnessed a mayor being beaten and one man said he was pulled to the ground by his genitals.

Pere Font, who went to vote in a polling station in Barcelona, said the Spanish police arrived at the centre at 9am.

“I was at the door of the classroom with more people, seated,” he said. “We said that we would vote. But in a moment they started catching people. They grabbed me by the testicles and they threw me to the ground.”

Virgínia Martínez, a 62-year-old, said she was insulted and abused by the Civil Guard in the town of Dosrius.

She said she fell when officers tried to stop her going into the school being used as a polling station.

“I tried to explain again that the only thing I wanted to do was to enter, but I could not finish the sentence because he grabbed my back … I was already on the floor … I started crying, hysterical of the nerves I had. I started to say, ‘You do not have the right to do this’. Then, this same civil guard told the other to grab the documentation, identify me.”

Pere Sitjà said he had already voted in Dosrius when he was attacked by Civil Guard officers.

He said: “They began to push people against the wall and began to pull women [including] my wife. I also saw a girl lying on the floor and when I went to help her they beat me.”

Another witness, Antonio Taules, who had voted at a school in El Bage, said armed officers had been received by the local mayor, who had been informed about the court order declaring the referendum illegal.

He said one officer then delivered “a strong blow” to the mayor, adding: “He fell to the ground and we all started to call ‘we are peaceful people’ with our arms raised.”

Taules said that at no time did anybody try to attack a Civil Guard officer.

Martí Carreras, who voted in Girona, told the court people at his polling station removed children and elderly people when Spanish police arrived, bursting through a side door to enter the building.

“We heard screams from within, we were at the front door,” he said. “They began to hit the people inside.

“The [Catalan] firefighters arrived and they told us they would defend us. We asked the agents for explanations and they hit us to separate us.”

As the trial continued yesterday, the leader of the Citizens party has offered its support to Pedro Sanchez and has urged him to re-impose direct rule on Catalonia under Article 155 of the Spanish constitution.

Albert Rivera made his remarks after meeting Sanchez, who is seeking support for his installation as prime minister.

Rivera, who wants to lead the opposition in the Spanish parliament, told journalists: “We believe that 155 must be applied as the first step, which is to require [Catalan President Quim] Torra to say that he

will comply, fulfil and enforce the constitution.”