The victim asked for “the protection of justice”, she obtained it. This Wednesday, November 13, the criminal court of Périgueux (Dordogne) sentenced his former companion, a 42-year-old pharmacist with no criminal record, to a three-year prison sentence, including two years with a suspended probationary period, for a series of acts, including violence committed against him on June 12 and 17, then on October 2, 2024.
The magistrates at the seat pronounced a sanction barely lighter than the requisitions of the deputy prosecutor, Annabelle Guignard. Taking seriously “the risk of the defendant's reoffending”, the representative of society's interests had requested earlier in the afternoon a three-year prison sentence, including one year with a probationary suspension against him.
A knife taken out of his pocket
“My role is to protect the victim,” argued the representative of the public prosecutor, convinced “that a tragedy was narrowly avoided.” On three occasions, the suffering forty-year-old went to the home of his former partner, heavily intoxicated and systematically armed.
“The first time, it was to try to reason with her,” the person concerned tried to justify. Summary of the races, the victim, grabbed forcefully by the shoulders, had to take refuge at his neighbor's house by passing through the window of his room. The defendant followed her and found on his way the tenant of the apartment who tried to calm him down. Was he overtaken by his resentment? As he was leaving the scene, the pharmacist took a knife from his pocket which he brought close to his victim's stomach. “If the neighbor had not intervened between the two, what would have happened except a bloodbath? », pretended to question his counsel, Me Réda Hammouche, convinced that the accused wanted to “attempt the life of his client”.
“I needed to express my anger”
Five days after this first episode which took him into police custody, the defendant forced the door of his partner's home and turned the house upside down before collapsing to the ground under the effect of the alcohol and medications. When the gendarmes showed up on site four hours later that night, the forty-year-old was still lying on the ground, shirtless, among the knives and Madame's torn clothes. “I needed to express my anger,” argued the person. “Weren't you waiting for your partner? “, opposed the president of the court, Morgane Codron. “I just wanted to take away the clothes and jewelry I had given her,” he swore back.
The sequence of events will make him lie. On October 2, while he was under judicial supervision, the man showed up at the victim's home armed with a rifle and an airsoft-type handgun. “I wanted to protect myself in case my ex found a new partner,” the defendant saw fit to mention, at the risk of upsetting the court. “If anyone has to protect themselves, it’s the victim,” said the president.
The defense lawyer, Me Nadège Trion, proposed another reading of the facts, urging the court to be “the judge of the facts, and not of the probable”. In vain.
