He was found criminally irresponsible for his actions in 2021 and agreed to testify for the first time to Mediapart.
He was nicknamed the « serial cat killer » after having tortured at least thirty cats and killed a dog at the end of the 2010s. These acts of animal cruelty were committed because of side effects of its “Requip” treatment to combat the effects of Parkinson’s disease of which he is a victim. The fifty-year-old recounts how taking this treatment ruined his life.
Death threats
After receiving a one-year prison sentence, the man received death threats and demonstrations in front of his home, forcing him to move far away and live “on the sly”: “ It’s like I’m hiding, I didn’t ask to have Parkinson’s, or to be on drugs, or to lose control of my brain.” he regrets. The man, originally from Caen, also has difficulty finding work despite having a cleared criminal record.
Link between Requip and acts of cruelty
In the trial, his lawyer, Dominique Mari, finally managed to obtain the expertise of a neurologist who was able to establish the link between taking the medication “Requip” and the potential side effects of this treatment against Parkinson’s from the dopamine agonist family. In 2021, the fifty-year-old was then declared not criminally responsible for his actions because the treatment impaired his discernment.
Lawyers from animal rights organizations deplore the fact that the potential adverse effects of acts of cruelty towards animals are not mentioned in the instructions for the medicine marketed by the GSK laboratory.
A quagmire treatment
The man has not taken Requip for ten years. He chose to testify in order to “ help the sick who do not know the quagmire they may find themselves in with these treatments.”
According to Santé Publique France, 150,000 patients are currently suffering from Parkinson’s disease in France and around 50,000 victims of the disease take Requip.
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