The suspect who admitted setting fire to the church in Saint-Omer already has 26 convictions on his criminal record. A judicial investigation has been opened.
The local press dubbed it “the church arsonist“. Freshly released from prison, Joël V. admitted to being behind the serious fire that ravaged the Immaculate Conception church in Saint-Omer, on the night of Sunday to Monday. A judicial investigation has been opened to shed light on the tragedy. The follow-up of this unstable man raises questions.
Aged 39 and of French nationality, the person concerned was arrested on Monday shortly before 7 p.m. Without profession and without a home, he was living in a shelter at the time. Placed in police custody, he confessed to having broken into the religious building around midnight, according to him with the aim of stealing money from the boxes, then to having decided to set fire to it. According to initial findings, a fire was identified in the sacristy, while another fire was spotted in the oratory.
Already convicted for vandalizing churches
The man has been living in idleness for many years. His criminal record includes no fewer than 26 convictions, including at least five for vandalism and/or burning of churches in the region, a judicial source told Figaro. In detail, two of his convictions are for “destruction of other people’s property by means dangerous to people” and one for “degradation or deterioration of a building used for worship“, the other convictions were for aggravated theft (burglary, theft by trickery, theft with damage), specifies the public prosecutor of Boulogne-sur-Mer, Guirec Le Bras.
The man had been out of prison since August 27, when he served his last sentence of 3 years and 6 months of imprisonment handed down on January 31, 2022, again by the Boulogne-sur-Mer court. During one of his trials in 2019, to which our colleagues from The Voice of the North attended, Joel V. had declared: “Sometimes I do things, I don’t really know why (…) But I don’t have a problem with churches.“The presiding judge described the man as “a sensitive person”. Abandoned by his mother shortly after birth, he spent his entire childhood in foster care before being taken into care in a home, then spending his first spell in prison at the age of 18.
Upcoming psychiatric assessments
«In view of the criminal qualification of the facts“, the public prosecutor of Saint-Omer Mehdi Benbouzid has since relinquished the case to the criminal division of Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais). A judicial investigation has been opened into the charges of “destruction of another’s property by means dangerous to people, committed on the grounds of race, ethnicity, nation or religion as a repeat offence and attempted burglary as a repeat offence.“The suspect was to be brought before the investigating judge by the end of the day on Wednesday with a view to a possible indictment. Psychiatric and psychological assessments will have to take place in order to shed light on Joël V.’s motivations, and to try to understand why he attacks churches so often.
