A man gets a year in prison for hitting his wife live on TikTok.

MADRID: A Spanish man who hit his wife during a livestream on TikTok was sentenced to a year in jail on Monday, even though the woman didn’t file a police report.

The man was found guilty of violence against women by a court in the northern city of Soria. The court told him he couldn’t get within 300 metres (1,000 feet) of his wife or talk to her for three years. He also couldn’t get a gun during that time.

The sentence comes from something that happened during a “battle” between the woman and three men on TikTok on January 28. A “battle” is a real-time competition between streamers where viewers decide who wins.

In pictures that went viral in Spain, the man is seen slapping his wife so hard in the face that she turns her head and starts crying.

The court said that the defendant beat his wife in public, in front of thousands of people, with the goal of hurting her body and making her look bad in public.

“In crimes of violence against women, the victim does not need to file a report. These things should be punished as soon as it’s clear they’ve been done “the judge said.

“If the slap is shown live on TV, that’s enough for the police to step in and protect the victim, even if she doesn’t recognise herself as one.”

The woman chose not to file charges against her husband and did not testify against him in court.

But the court said that police had been called to the couple’s home before because of “disputes between the accused and his wife,” which showed that there was “continued mistreatment.”

Both right-wing and left-wing governments in Spain have made stopping domestic violence a top priority.

In 2004, the European Parliament passed the first law to specifically stop violence against women.

It set up special courts, gave victims free legal help, and made a hotline that wouldn’t show up on their phone bills.