Three young people suspected of a homophobic attack during the fanfare festival were placed under strict judicial supervision on Friday, June 28, pending their trial scheduled for July 17.
Committed on June 1st in a small street in Boutonnet, on the fringes of the fanfare festival, the assault of a young woman had a big impact. The victim had in fact testified on Instagram that she had been beaten by several men because she was with her girlfriend.
An individual had hit her before being joined by four others. The young woman was able to be saved by the intervention of relatives. One of them is also a victim during the trial. Both are supported by the association Fierté Montpellier Tignes Pride, which has filed a civil suit.
This Friday, June 28, four weeks after this attack, and four hours after the start of the hearing in the criminal court, the victim finally faced two of the youths who had hit her. A woman, the fiancée of one of the defendants, was also due to be tried. But she was taken ill in the jails and did not appear.
A fourth individual, identified by the police, is the one suspected of having struck the victim the most. But he fled and was therefore absent from court.
During this high-tension hearing, the victim’s lawyer, Me Thil, denounced “menacing looks” from relatives of the two defendants. “The victims are subjected to this dismissal” (requested by the lawyers of the two defendants), she stressed.
Aged 19, Bryan lives in the small street where the acts were committed, between rue Faubourg Boutonnet and rue Lakanal. Or in the same area as the two other defendants and the main victim.
A few weeks before this attack, he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for a burglary committed last November. He was one of the individuals who subsequently came to hit the young woman.
“This file is based on statements and I am surprised that the homophobic character was retainedconfided his lawyer, Me Tursan. There was a lot of excitement around this issue”.
Other attacks in the same neighborhood on June 1
If the victim’s testimony was striking, it is also because she denounced the inaction of the police, who had asked her to “leave the premises” after being hit.
She also explained that she had not been able to file a complaint at first, before denouncing the way she had been received subsequently.
Mayor Michaël Delafosse, the prefect of Hérault François-Xavier Lausch and senator Hussein Bourgi deplored these facts. The latter was even present this Friday in court to support the victim.
An internal investigation was launched at the police station. Another complaint was filed on June 1 by a union member who received a violent punch during the festival.
Attacks had been denounced by the organizing association, but there is nothing to establish a connection with the facts which were judged this Friday, June 28.
“A free beating”
David, aged 27, has been convicted three times, the last in 2019, for robbery with violence, destruction of other people’s property and carrying a category D weapon. He is engaged to the young woman who is also being prosecuted in this case.
“I am going to marry her and the woman who will be our witness is on the same side as the victimhe testifies in order to refute the homophobic nature of the facts. I have no problem with that.”
“I am convinced that this is not the cause of this brawlargued his lawyer, Paul Gallix. I find it amazing that we are asking for pre-trial detention for someone who has not been convicted for so long.”
In front “the risk of pressure on the victim, of repetition of the facts and of flight”prosecutor Alexia Diot had in fact requested that the two individuals remain in detention, and strict judicial supervision for the young woman. “If we remove the homophobic character as requested by the defense, we have a gratuitous beating”, she denounced. Also remembering “the different versions of the three defendants”.
“The victims are shocked and worried as soon as they leave their homesrecalled their lawyer. I ask you to protect them and that their attackers can no longer come into contact with them.”
The three defendants were placed under judicial supervision by the court presided over by Alix Fredon, pending their trial scheduled for July 17. Until then, they are prohibited from appearing in Montpellier, and from having contact with each other or with the victims.
