After weeks of Spanish police officers telling the Supreme Court and the Catalan independence trial about the hatred they saw in voters' eyes, now it's the turn of defence witnesses, including some of those voters. And the story they are telling is quite different.
For example, today, Pere Font, his voice cracking, narrated: "They grabbed me by the testicles, picked me up and dropped me down". "They threw me as if I was a packet," he continued. And, when asked by public prosecutors, he made it clear that "there was no one wearing a hood", nor was he responding to any "call from the political parties to go to vote".
"Another [person], they grabbed him by the ears and lifted him up", he said, despite them all "being peaceful". Fort was at Víctor Català school in Barcelona, where the police arrived at around half nine. He said that the first to arrive were Catalan Mossos police, but that they couldn't enter because there was a poetry recital underway. Then, "a National Police officer appeared with a club over my head and another with pliers to open the door". "We were saying votarem ['we will vote']. We were sitting those who'd been from the beginning, and the rest were standing because they didn't fit," he said.
Carme Budú told the court that as far as she saw, voters didn't insult the police or use violence, saying that instead when police arrived they sang the Catalan anthem, Els Segadors.
She also explained that when people living on the way into the village of Dosrius let them know police were coming, the local mayor stood in front of them. But the riot officers "grabbed the mayor and hit us all".
Another important remark from the defence perspective came from Josep Fort, who said that people "organised themselves". Meanwhile one of the most commented-on moments came from his fellow witness Agustí Ferrer. Asked at the start of his appearance by head judge Manuel Marchena to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, he remarked that he would and he hopes "the truth will set you free".