« I didn't want to come to that. I wanted it back…” The young man tries to justify himself in court but only sinks deeper into denial. Unable to bear the breakup with the man he had come to join in Blayais at the start of 2023, he had bombarded his former companion with emails and text messages, returning to the latter's home to put his name back on the mailbox, damaging his spa with “a sharp object”… But also the latter’s ex, whom he threatened to kill, then tried to pass him off as a pedophile, accusing him of being responsible for the breakup. The defendant appeared Tuesday, October 8 before the Libourne criminal court for harassment, damage to property, aggravated violence, malicious telephone calls and repeated death threats, between March and July 2024.
Tensed, he responds without seeming to understand the seriousness of his actions, minimizing certain episodes, claiming to have forgotten others. He reaffirms “having wanted to win back” the man with whom he still says he is madly in love. The meeting took place in September 2022. The defendant leaves Normandy at the beginning of 2023 to move to Gironde with his conquest. The break was complete in April. The owner of the place allows him to stay until the end of the year “out of pity”. The defendant misinterprets the gesture. In court, he reaffirms a breakup that occurred at the end of the year, remains vague on the causes, tendentious SMS sent to his partner's ex. The latter, still very good friends with his ex, with whom he had lived for several years, had informed him of this.
“I’m going to kill you”
The president of the court, Laëtita Dautel, talks about the malicious calls, the repeated telephone messages, up to 44 in just three hours, the deterioration of the spa, the unwanted interventions at home, the too many interventions by the gendarmerie… And this day which saw him get angry and rush towards his former partner's ex on a scooter. A man whom he also unambiguously threatened. “I’m going to kill you,” he told her one day in May. The president emphasizes the psychological impact on the two victims, the major alteration of their quality of life, the consequences on their social and professional lives. The ex, whom the defendant tried to pass off as a pedophile in his village, was forced to have arrested. And to come out to those in charge.
The defendant says he acted out of anger, did not think about taking action, and burst into tears when listening to the victims' testimony. He says he understood. He is accused of failing to comply with the judicial review procedure which has prohibited him since 1is August 2024 to contact his former companion. Which he tried via the Internet. Or by sending him photos and the key to his new home through an intermediary.
A “sick”
The two victims filed civil suits. “My client had to change email and telephone number. He lost bonuses linked to the exercise of his profession. But above all he lives in a feeling of permanent insecurity,” detailed Me Molteni, lawyer for the ex of the former companion, before asking for damages.
The public prosecutor was particularly concerned about the defendant's behavior when “warnings, police custody and judicial supervision are not enough”. Deputy Prosecutor Charline Fine noted the multiplication of facts, that of false digital accounts to maintain contact, the episodes of violence, “the hell experienced by the victims”. She requested a mixed sentence, two years of imprisonment with a firm part, highlighting the dangerousness of the defendant's behavior. A thesis that the defense fought, Me Morgane Vigneau, evoking the dismay of a man “desperately in love”, who has suffered since childhood from having been abandoned. “It’s not revenge,” she insists. But impulses,” on which he intends to work.
Bracelet antirapprochement
The court sentenced the young man to two years' imprisonment, including eighteen months with a two-year probationary suspension, a sentence adjustable with an electronic bracelet, with provisional execution. He is prohibited from coming into contact with the victims or coming to their homes or workplaces. The sentence is accompanied by an obligation to undergo psychological treatment and to compensate the civil parties. An anti-reconciliation bracelet measure must be put in place for the benefit of the former companion, with a pre-alert zone set between one and two kilometers…
